What do Training attention, boys and ballet have in common? 

In 4th grade, I started playing basketball in large part because I was tall for my age. By 6th grade, I was 6’3” and towered over my classmates. Growing so quickly created a lot of awkwardness. I “lost” the ability to do a layup and often tripped over my own feet. It was a painful stage that just took time to overcome.

So, it was no surprise that my oldest son, Zach, experienced something similar around the age of 11. My wife described him on the soccer field as looking like a Great Dane puppy for about a year. Like me, he eventually grew into his body and his coordination returned. 

When my younger son, Will, went through the same growth spurt, we expected to see similar coordination challenges on the soccer field. However, he maintained his coordination even while growing more than 6 inches in one year.

What was the difference?

While playing soccer, Will also did ballet, which requires very precise movement and consciousness of where your body is in space. And while his ballet teacher noted Will had a few challenges with coordination, it was only relative to the other ballet dancers. He never looked uncoordinated on the soccer field.

If Will had only played soccer, he would not have had the opportunity to train his movement precision the way he did with ballet. Training with the Attention Arcade works in much the same way. It allows children to practice precise eye movements and attention skills that they would not be able to train when doing most things in life.

Just like coordination, attention skills can be trained with the right knowledge and tools.

Want to know more? Here is information about the science behind the Attention Arcade.