Attention training can have a big impact on your child’s executive functioning and academic performance with just 20 hours of training (although you should start seeing improvements after just 5 hours).
The first thing is to ensure your child is excited about playing the Attention Arcade. Here is a one-minute promo video to share with them to show how much fun it is:
Your eye tracker should be arriving any day now, so we want you to be ready to start training. Let’s walk through the setup process:
Step 1: Install the Tobii Eyetracker
Step 2: Download the Attention Arcade
Step 3: Install the Attention Arcade
And if you have not done it already, you can get the Attention Arcade Overview here. It explains how the games work and what they train.
Our children always do what we want, right? As a parent of two teenage boys, I know this is only true occasionally. So, it makes sense to have a few strategies to get them training regularly.
Create a habit. It is good to create a habit by tying it to something else they do every day (e.g. play as soon as you finish breakfast) or at a specific time every day.
Follow the schedule. Print out this training schedule to show your child how they should be training each day. Sometimes, clear expectations are enough to get them playing regularly.
Tie it to a preferred activity. Make it a step before they get to do something they enjoy. For example, they need to play for 20 minutes before they get any other screen time.
Reward consistent play. Set a reward for when they play 5 days in a row (this is often a big milestone for children who have challenges with eye control) or a specific total time, which is tracked in the game suite.
Hopefully, these tips help keep your child on track. And I would love to hear about any strategies that work well with your child, so we can share them with other parents (or share it on https://www.facebook.com/groups/582404385726222).