Attention and Listening

I am still little and learning how to pay attention and listen to others. There are some things that you can do to help me learn these skills.

• Say your child's name before speaking to them.
• Get down to your child's level so you are face to face.
• Make sure you are close enough that they can hear what you are saying.
• Reduce distractions and background noise.
• Keep your language simple.
• Check that your child has heard and understood what you have said.

Young children learn through play so they need to be able to move around when they are learning. Toddlers and young children use lots of different positions to do things. They might stand at the water tray, squat to do a jigsaw or lie on their tummy to look at a book. Moving like this between activities and positions usually helps young children to pay attention so don't expect children to sit still for long periods of time.