That instinct becomes less and less valuable as humans evolved and at times a barrier for humans living in the modern world where proactive focus is required to do any job. Teenagers in particular experience constant battles between reactive and proactive focus. One would have no problem playing video games for hours (reactive concentration to sounds and sudden movements) while may be struggling to concentrate in class (proactive focus).
When Bing Bing was about 2 months old. I noticed that she stared at our clock on the wall a lot when she was being fed in the room. Our clock was rather unusual. It was a large round clock with picture frames inside. They were all black and white photos that we were supposed to replace with our own photos but we just couldn't be bothered. We liked the random black and white photos when we bought the clock.
I started showing Bing Bing more black and white photos, you know, more close up. She stared at them even longer. I was fascinated and I made a whole lot of black and white shapes and pictures. Then I started introducing one more colour - red. Everyday she loved staring at those colours and shapes. She started ignoring background noise and movements. She stopped crying when she looked at my cards. I showed her 5, 10, 15, 20 then 40 pictures at a time, about 10 seconds each, just enough for me to describe to her what I was showing.
Lately she's been practicing her focus with puzzles, of many kinds: knob, chunk, layer, all sorts. She spent about 10-15 minutes on each puzzle with multiple attempts. I admit that it was hard almost impossible to "induce" a one year old to sit down and do a proper puzzle. Many parents I knew said they didn't want to force their child and just let them the way they'd be. But I insisted on inducing Bing Bing in any way I could. I made up stories about puzzles, I changed my voice tones when I saw the correct pieces, I got excited about puzzles myself, I tried to be another curious toddler around Bing Bing. In many levels I am all about independent play and freedom. On another level, I am a huge believer of family education. We as parents have the utter most influencing power on our children in all aspects - not by force but gentle persuasion.
Taking about force and persuasion reminded me of a story I often read to Bing Bing. It went "The sun was shining happy and bright in the sky when the wind came by. The wind claimed himself the mightiest of all. A man was walking across the meadow. The wind said whoever makes the man take off his jacket will be the mightiest of all. as he took his full force making a swirling storm trying to blow the man's jacket off. The man felt so cold and held on tight to his jacket. The sun just smiled and shined away. The man felt too hot so he took his jacket off voluntarily." The story ends with a saying "A gentle persuasion is always better than force".
Bing Bing first encountered a puzzle when she was about 6 months old and it took about 12 months to get her interested in doing puzzles, not only because her physical and brain development reached the point but also because she was already watching me doing puzzles and got familiar with them. Puzzles became as natural to her as having a cracker. She did 2 piece puzzles, then 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 25 and 40 piece puzzles. It was simple - practice. Bing Bing could focus for 15, 20 and 30 minutes on puzzles without being distracted. From the look on her face, I could tell her brain was working very hard to figure out where all these pieces go. It was very special to watch a child concentrating on their work.
Focus does wonder. With the ability to focus Bing Bing learned things at great speeds, she remembered things. She got lost in her concentration when it comes to playing, exploring, reading etc. Proactive focus needs constant training even for adults. It is often dominated by reactive focus which explains why adults still get distracted at work with noises. Reactive focus grows with screen time. Bing Bing had no access to TV or videos at all. It is recommended that children should not have any screen time at least until they've turned three.
Alex
