focus

Back in the day I wrote my thesis surrounding the topic of ADD/ADHD and came across a controversial article addressing whether or not attention deficit in children is caused by environmental factors, a chemical imbalance or both. And should we be medicating or looking at external factors? It discussed our busy society, nutrition, sleep, learning differences, television watching, etc. etc...

Well, last week I came upon a similar article online, and what I found interesting and pertinent is related to early childhood and how we have the innate ability to focus from a very early age. Small children LOVE to focus. Infants will focus on small chew toys, lights, or colorful objects for long periods of time. Toddlers will spend multiple minutes just trying to put on a shoe, exploring food or objects, or doing what we consider to be menial tasks. And I think we confuse this intense focus sometimes with procrastination or being painfully s~l~o~w (of which we encounter daily at the age of two).

Anyway, the other night as Cory and I were being slouches on the couch after a long day, we noticed that Weredesh was really quiet, but busy, but we weren't sure what she was up to. After some investigating, we figured out that she was transporting her ABC blocks from the shelf upstairs in her bedroom, downstairs to place them in a basket. Two by two. She would hike upstairs, grab two blocks off the shelf and then bring them carefully down the stairs and place them in a basket. Considering there's 26 letters in the alphabet, we estimate that she went up and down those stairs approximately 13 times, because she did it up to every last letter. She also slept really well that night. :)

See how proud she is of her work?

Diligent. Focused. Nice job, muffin top. :)