How to Help Kids Focus: Expert Strategies from Teachers

Does your child struggle to stay focused, jumping from one task to another without finishing what they started? Do they find it hard to concentrate in school or while doing homework? Focus is more than just paying attention—it plays a key role in learning, problem-solving, and emotional development.

Helping your child improve their focus can lead to better academic performance, stronger cognitive skills, and greater confidence in their abilities. Whether it’s through small changes at home or structured support from an expert learning program, there are effective ways to build your child’s attention span.

In this article, we will discuss how to help kids focus at home or what the wonders of additional support from Genie Academy can do for your child.

Strategies to Improve Kids’ Focus at Home: 

It’s important that we focus on ways to help your child focus at home using strategies such as building routines, designating quiet spaces, breaking tasks into manageable pieces, and using visual schedules and timers. 

• Building Routines: It’s useful to create routines that include diverse activities such as playtime, worktime, chores, etc. This kind of consistency helps your child know what to expect and when to shift their focus on what task. 
• Designating Quiet Spaces: It can be useful to have a place in the house made for doing homework, studying,g or even reading. That can be a quiet focus corner to help your child be free of distractions. 
• Breaking Tasks into Manageable Pieces: Sometimes it can be overwhelming to start to focus on doing homework or studying but something that has always worked with my students is breaking things down into smaller manageable pieces. It can make the idea of focusing less daunting when there are fewer things they need to focus on. Then, once you’ve found your child is in a flow state, they can continue to build on the work and do more. 
• Timers: Now, every child is different, but many kids are motivated by a sense of game or competition. With my students, timers have proven to be a useful tool for maintaining focus. I typically use a 7-minute timer to start, and the goal is to finish a page of work in 7 minutes. This can be adjusted depending on the type of work; they may need longer or shorter time but 7 minutes. This gives them a sense of purpose and accomplishment to finish within the timer that motivates them to start focusing. Once the initial focus comes, it can continue to flourish with habit. 

Games and Activities that Promote Focus at Home: 

• Puzzle Games: Games such as Sudoku or Crossword puzzles help enhance logical thinking and concentration.  
• Memory Games: Simon Says may seem simple, but it's a great way of testing whether your kids are paying attention. When playing Simon Says with my students, they’re beyond excited to focus, so they don’t get out. 
• Reading/Storytelling: When reading and retelling stories, your child is tapping into their focus to read between the lines and figure out what’s going on in the story. 
• Arts/Crafts: When your child engages in arts, crafts, drawings, paintings, etc., sustained attention is required. Projects with multiple steps can help maintain focus over an extended period of time. It’s useful to have your child work on something they care about over a period of time. 

Nutrition and Sleep: The Overlooked Focus Boosters: 

I’ve walked into my class to find my students irritable, frustrated, and unwilling to try. When I sit down and talk to them, I often hear the same reasons, "I’m tired" or "I’m hungry."

• The Role of Nutrition in Focus

Kids need their brains fueled with glucose, omega-3s, vitamins B and D, and iron to stay focused. A well-balanced diet with vegetables, carbs, and protein is essential for sustained energy and concentration. On busy days of learning, proper nutrition is the key to keeping their minds sharp and engaged.

• The Power of Sleep

So much happens when we sleep. One of the most important processes is memory consolidation, where information moves from short-term to long-term memory, which is crucial for learning and retention. Sleep also plays a major role in healing the body, strengthening systems, and improving executive function in the brain, which enhances attention.

Why We Offer Meditation at Genie Academy!

Meditation is an essential practice for staying calm, regulating the central nervous system, and improving emotional control. It helps cultivate mental clarity, emotional calm, and reduced distraction, making it a valuable tool for mental and physical well-being.

• Incorporating Mindfulness into Daily Life

You can introduce mindfulness meditation into your and your child’s routine with simple deep breathing exercises—whether it’s in the morning or during moments of frustration. Even a few intentional breaths can create a calmer and more focused mindset.

• Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation

Nicole Fleming, in Three Ways Meditation Boosts Your Focus, highlights how returning attention to the breath during meditation strengthens the brain’s neural circuitry for focus (Fleming, 2018). This practice reinforces a child’s ability to concentrate and regulate emotions effectively.

• Meditation at Genie Academy

At Genie Academy, we prioritize mindfulness by starting each class with deep breathing exercises and mantras. This practice helps children enter a positive, calm, and focused headspace, setting the tone for better learning and concentration throughout the session.

How Can Yoga in Class Help With Focus and Mental Clarity?

Yoga is widely recognized for enhancing mental clarity and improving attention span. By emphasizing the mind-body connection, yoga helps children stay grounded, which promotes calmness and focus.

• How Yoga Improves Focus

To successfully complete yoga poses, children must concentrate on posture, breath, and body movements. This intentional presence strengthens self-awareness and focus, helping them stay engaged in yoga and other activities.

• Science-Backed Cognitive Benefits

Harvard Health explains that “when you do yoga, your brain cells develop new connections, and changes occur in brain structure as well as function, resulting in improved cognitive skills such as learning and memory” (Harvard, 2024). This means yoga does more than improve flexibility—it actively supports brain function.

• Bringing Yoga into Daily Life

Simple activities like breathing exercises while stretching or a fun balancing tree pose competition can help incorporate yoga into your child’s daily routine at home. These exercises reinforce focus, body awareness, and relaxation.

• Yoga at Genie Academy

At Genie Academy, we integrate yoga midway through class to help students reset when they start feeling tired or unfocused. A few minutes of yoga poses stretches, and breathing exercises help them regain concentration and stay engaged in learning.

How Abacus and Mental Math Can Help With Focus

Genie Academy helps kids with focus by using the Abacus. This ancient tool is fun! It trains young minds to concentrate by visualizing objects in their minds. Learning the abacus improves calculation skills and arithmetic fundamentals and promotes cognitive development. Abacus learning also enhances memory, concentration, and focus through bead manipulation. Your child will learn to process information faster, strengthening their working memory and improving their ability to focus on solving complex problems.

Once your child masters the abacus, they graduate to mastering mental math, and he or she is well on their way to perfecting the discipline needed to concentrate. According to Concept Mastery Education, “Mental math practice strengthens the brain’s neural pathways, improving memory, concentration, and cognitive functions”(Concept Mastery, 2024). At home, you can try having your child visualize simple math problems in their head using objects such as beads. This will allow them to practice, which requires much concentration to do.

Many kids have struggled with focus and math concepts, especially in the post-pandemic world. At Genie Academy we have a multitude of Success Stories representing children’s academic success, focus, and achievements from the use of Genie’s Abacus/Mental Math program. 

Music

“Music activates both the left and right brain simultaneously, and the activation of both hemispheres can maximize learning and improve memory,” says Dr. Masha Godkin, a professor in the Department of Marriage and Family Sciences at National University. Music can impact mood, blood pressure, and heart rate.

At Genie, our classrooms have special calming music playing in the background to help keep kids calm and present. This music relaxes the brain and makes it more receptive to learning, which allows them to focus more.

How Genie Academy Can Help!

At Genie Academy, we focus on teaching kids at their own pace and learning style and helping with their attention and focus. With Genie Academy’s unique meditation, yoga, abacus, and mental math sequence, students have never felt more confident and ready to start learning.

In addition to abacus and mental math, we offer tutoring in core subjects like math, writing, reading, and coding, ensuring a well-rounded educational experience. We serve families across locations in New Jersey – Plainsboro, East Brunswick, South Brunswick, Hillsborough, South Plainfield, and Marlboro.

Conclusion 

We must help our kids improve their focus muscles by using strategies that improve those skills. In this article, we dive into the strategy to enhance focus, games and activities, nutrition, sleep value, meditation, yoga, mental math, and music. At Genie Academy, your child will be focused and engaged because our classes are designed to do so through meditation, yoga, abacus, mental math, and music.

Our class experience enables focus throughout the session due to its pacing and focus on mindfulness and mental visualization. Your child may be unable to focus now, but once they get into a routine of these positive habits and mental stimulation, you will see the difference! Choose Genie Academy and pick one of their 6 locations in New Jersey, including Plainsboro, East Brunswick, South Brunswick, Hillsborough, South Plainfield, and Morganville. Genie Academy will unlock the genius in your child.