From the Desk of Keith Hafner 

Short Attention Spans

My grandson, Sebastian, loves trains.  So — we’re in my office and he says, “Let’s watch the trains on the computer.”

And we do.  For about a minute and a half.  Then, he wants to get down from my lap and go do something else.

Short attention span, right?  But — not only is this natural at his age (3 1/2)…it’s important that it is that way.

Why, you ask?

Here’s why:  at that age, you don’t need to know a lot about any one thing.

What you do need is to learn a little bit about a million different things.

When a kid is young, and the whole world is still a mystery, a short attention span is useful.

It causes the young learner to go quickly from thing to thing…taking in little bits of information quickly.

However.

As a kid grows, and has a general sense of how the world operates…it’s time to start learning a lot about a much smaller list of things.

Here (and not until you get here) — short attention span becomes a problem.