Difficult child behaviors:
What is it?
- Overactivity means that the child moves or talks more often than typical. Some of the activity might come from having a hard time paying attention. It might look like:
- Walking away in the middle of a game or activity
- Leaving the dinner table
- Making an off-topic comment in the middle of a conversation
- Starting to play before finishing cleaning up
- Children have shorter attention spans than adults. Sometimes what seems like trouble paying attention is actually normal for a child's age. Here is a quick overview of how long children can typically stay focused on one task at different ages:
- 2 years old: 4-6 minutes
- 3 years old: 6-8 minutes
- 4 years old: 8-12 minutes
- 5-6 years old: 12-18 minutes
- 7-8 years old: 16-24 minutes
- 9-10 years old: 20-30 minutes
- 11-12 years old: 25-35 minutes
Where do they get this from?
- Attention span and activity level are areas of temperament. This means some children can stay focused or still for less than the typical range, and others can stay focused or still for longer than the typical range. This is not good or bad. It is just the way the child's body and brain are.
- Sometimes trouble paying attention can result from a higher sensitivity to distractions. The distractions can be external (e.g., noises, movement, cold air) or internal (e.g., thoughts, change in heart rate, hunger) and incredibly hard to ignore. This is often related to attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, sensory sensitivities, or another form of neurodiversity.
- What is considered a problem also depends on the environment. At the playground, few children are considered overactive. Some families have high activity levels and do not consider a child who wants to climb and jump at home as overactive. Other families have lower activity levels and might see these behaviors as problematic.
- Stress, worry, remembering scary events, sadness, and anger can also make it harder for children to pay attention and be still.
