Is "Paying Attention" Overrated for Kids?

Last week at my neighborhood park, I watched a seven-year-old boy seemingly "not paying attention" during his outdoor science lesson. While his teacher was explaining plant life cycles, he was looking everywhere but at her diagram—at ants crawling near the roots, at the way sunlight filtered through leaves, at how the wind moved different branches. Later, this same "distracted" child explained photosynthesis by connecting all these observations. What looked like inattention was actually a different, more holistic form of engagement.

A new study offers insight into how this process works. Children's attention and learning might operate differently than ours—not better or worse, but not the same.

Children may learn more through absorbing their environment

Source: Pexels, Thurman

If you've been in a classroom recently, or worked with a child on homework, you've probably heard—or said, "Just focus, okay?" You've probably seen the ways kids are jumping up to do a million other things, or noticing the bluebird flying outside the window instead of working on their projects. To us, it appears to be plain and simple distraction—but as this study suggests, kids and adults might actually learn and focus differently. Kids may be less good at paying selective attention, or noticing only one thing, but they may tend to be better at absorbing more from the world.

As a speech pathologist and author of The Art of Talking with Children, I'm very interested in how we have conversations with kids and how those conversations help their learning, social skills, and relationships. I'm also very aware of how stressful it can be, whether as a parent, caregiver, or teacher, to feel as if kids aren't paying attention "right." How will they ever learn, we might wonder?

The Science of Children's Attention

This new study offers insight. The study, which appeared in Psychological Science in 2024, showed that kids tended to learn information just as well when they were asked to ignore it as when they were asked to focus on it. In this study, researchers Marlie Tandoc at the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues studied children ages 7 to 9 and adults. The researchers asked participants either to attend to drawings of common objects or simply notice when shapes repeated.

The first finding wasn't surprising. When everyone was asked to attend to the drawings, the adults learned the drawings better than the children. But when everyone was asked not to attend to them—that is, just to notice if shapes repeated—children showed better learning in the test's first half. Just as interesting, the children learned the drawings just as well when they weren't asked to pay attention to them as when they were.

As the researchers asked, "Why can children achieve certain learning feats that many adults cannot?" In part, it seems because they attend to many factors in their environment simultaneously. Rather than paying attention primarily to what they are told to, their attention seems to be more roving, as they explore their environments. This allows them to notice, for instance, both the ways someone is solving a problem on the board and the ways their friend is drawing an animal in his notebook.

Also, interestingly, the researchers suggest that "instructions play even less of a role in children's learning than was previously thought." Telling children, in this case, what they ought to attend to didn't change how much they learned.

Rethinking Learning Environments

That means that learning, for them, might actually look more to us like moving around their rooms or their environments, picking up different cues. They may be attending to novelty, to what catches their eyes—and this attention to novelty may help them learn. Their lack of selective attention, in this case, may actually be a strength.

Engaging kids in their environments is crucial to long-term learning

Source: Pexels, Natalie Bond

This isn't an argument for them to be totally "unfocused" or running around the room instead of sitting. It also is only one study, and clearly has limitations in terms of what students were being asked to learn. There are certainly situations where directed attention is crucial: when learning about safety procedures, crossing streets, or following specific sequences, for example. But even in these cases, children might be absorbing information differently than we expect.

What I find most interesting about this research is how it raises the question: "might children learn in a way that looks and feels different from us?" And if they do, perhaps we need to shift our stance.

New Approaches to Engage Learning

Rather than telling children only to "pay attention," we might offer alternatives that will interest them and help them pay closer attention. For instance, consider having interesting things on the wall or in the environment that support their deeper learning on the topic.

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Here's what this might look like in practice: When helping a child with reading comprehension, you see he’s constantly fidgeting and looking around. Instead of repeatedly redirecting him to the page, try taking a break and letting him explore the room. See what connections you can make to the story he’s been reading. Perhaps there is a man in the story looking out the window. Does what he sees seem similar to what your child sees? What is different? Before going back to reading, ask the child to predict what else might be similar or different. What does she think will happen next in the story? Why? With the movement break and the chance to make new connections, you may find her engaging with the story in a deeper way.

More broadly, we may need to rethink the way we talk to kids about learning and distraction. Instead of berating them for not paying attention as we do, we might instead help channel their energy, noticing new things for example, but not so many new things that it overwhelms them.

Maybe instead of asking, "Pay attention," consider, "What else do you notice?" or "How does that new piece of information relate to what we are learning?" This can start a far richer conversation—and help children learn more deeply. It's a worthwhile shift in terms of our relationship, too. Instead of a battle for attention, consider working with children's natural curiosities, engaging them with what they are learning, and with other aspects of the environment as well.

Embracing Different Ways of Learning

What changes might you make this week to support the natural learning patterns of the children in your life? Could you create learning environments with varied stimuli that support your core topic? Might you experiment with asking different questions that harness rather than suppress their wandering attention? The results might surprise you—and transform learning from a battle of wills into a journey of discovery.