Promoting concentration through play.

By Walter Steinwald. Originally written August 6, 2015.

Image by Walter Steinwald.

​In our home, in education or living, we’ve always struggled to allow concentration to have its way. When the kids have shut out, through play, all thoughts toward anything else, the schedule is often realigned. I know it takes work to concentrate, task or leisure centered, so when I see them focused on a thing; a game, figurine play, sewing etc. it is difficult for me to find something more important for them to do. It seems to me that facilitating their habits or abilities to concentrate is giving them a certain greater gift than that small piece of information that was planned in our school schedule. Practicing prolonged concentration in a busy world always reminds me of Jack London’s To Light A Fire; it is a necessary thing to be done in the midst of great opposition.

​When we concentrate, all or very much of, our intellectual tenants are pointed at one single thing, magnifying the subtleties and finding the ironies. This requires us, in some degree, to bracket or push aside all things not necessary to the point. (I have always marveled at readers in busy public places.) Taken together these actions allow us to grasp the thing for a prolonged time, filling ourselves with the object and nothing else. Whatever the object, this is how we make it a part of ourselves.

This is how we build our intellectual homes. One could hardly find the mysteries in our world without applying these mental pressures unless we strain intuition to breaking point. All reality to some extent requires us to set upon it with these mental claws. The greatest of searches, that one for ourselves, requires much energy and relies on a deep penetration done with focus. In fact, if we don’t want to slog through life with knee-jerk responses, we admit that honor, love, forgiveness—most any saintly act—and even emotions require concentration for a proper response. For one not to simply grow older, but in order to mature as well, the ability to concentrate must also develop in relation.

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These are fairly blunt observations, I know. If all this is self-evident and obvious why is concentration not cultivated? In the home or in the school we have no real motion toward slowing down and focusing the mind. What could be pointed at in our daily lives as serving that function? Do we have the opposite? Technologies are created to speed up time, that’s what they do. We bring these into our homes and often with no insulation, no armor against what it might do to our home. Have we ever wondered what our home could be with some policing or limiting of speed giving devices?
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There is much debatable with screen-games and if we compare the mental needs against those of non-electric games or activities, I think some basic evidential skeleton appears. For one, these games are designed to be fun, to be novel, they invite the player to progress through it; they invite concentration. 

This is not the case with time-honored books. A great writing, like any great piece of art, has something to say to your heart, it is not entertainment. Purposeful concentration is the key to gain this. Also, some things stand out when we compare electric games to people games. An electric game was designed with specific parameters; there are finite options, not so with people. When a group of people begins to play, say tag, there is no way of knowing how it will end or what is going to happen during the play. With screen-games, the basic architecture can be memorized. When introduced to a new or different game a seasoned gamer can rely on previous experience to move through the fields. Isn’t this the reason kids are pressured to learn technology and the screen kind because it all shares a common architectural layout? I can’t see how this is growing concentration or broadening the individual when compared to people-play.

I have watched my own kids play in a single setting from morning through evening and sometimes continue the same situation into the next day. Most of the time these games involve figurines and as the play progresses more diverse toys are added making the situation completely different from episode to episode, but continuing on the same thread. Figurines have allowed them to express much of what they know and much of what they are only beginning to see. The concentration they use is invitatory, like screen-games, but the invitation comes from one another. Unlike screen-activities they work off each other’s excitement and creativity, there is no goal, no score, no end; they just concentrate on playing.

By cultivating this sort of concentration through play, I think we as parents can see the results rather quickly; I watch, with no little admiration, when my children sit sometimes for two or three hours reading a book through to its end. They both, with forced concentration, pull through their “school work” with little or no breaks. It’s not that they are droneish, uncomplaining robot saints; it’s not the case, whatsoever, but they can set upon a single subject for prolonged periods and this I believe is a pearl of great price, won from cultivation.

By nurturing their concentration through play, allowing them to continue working on tasks they like without interruption, we give our kids the tools necessary to practice forced concentration when it is asked. As well as limiting the availability to screen technologies, we must press ourselves to be examples of prolonged concentration. How often have our kids caught us quietly reading with no purposeful distractions? Do we, as parents, have activities in our daily life that are distraction free? How do we value quiet time? Screen technologies are very impatient and there is not one time of the day they are not demanding our attention. Should we allow that?