Why parents really feel burnout on Friday, revealed in new research
- A new study looked at how children aged 3 to 6 behaved during the week
- Children became more impulsive and inattentive as the week progressed
- READ MORE:
By the time Friday rolls around, some parents may be ready to pull their hair out.
Now experts have discovered that children do indeed become more impulsive and inattentive as the week progresses.
As part of a study, 60 children between the ages of three and six wore accelerometers to detect how much they moved at school.
Using this data, combined with teacher reports, researchers were able to identify when children were likely not paying attention and had less control over their behavior.
Experts have found that children do indeed become more impulsive and inattentive as the week progresses
Analysis found that children’s ability to regulate their behavior declined over the week, indicating that self-regulation is a resource that can be depleted through repeated use in everyday situations such as school.
They also found that children with better self-regulation showed greater consistency in applying them across days.
Andrew Koepp, lead author of the study from the University of Pennsylvania, said: ‘If a child has difficulty maintaining attention or sitting still, it disrupts learning and can disrupt the classroom.
‘Research has consistently shown that difficulties controlling attention and behavior predict more problems later in life, such as lower educational attainment and more financial problems.’
The researchers said it may be helpful for teachers to understand that young children are most calm and ready to learn earlier in the school week.
In the magazine Child Development they wrote, “Why does a child have trouble sitting through a story one day, but not the next?”
‘Why do they impulsively rush into one activity and not another?
‘Controlling one’s behavior takes effort, so we hypothesized that children’s self-regulation might become fatigued during the school week.
‘We found that children’s daily forward movement increased throughout the school week, indicating that they exhibited more uncontrolled behavior as the week progressed.’
They added: ‘To participate in a lesson, children must first be able to calm their bodies, maintain attention and resist the impulse to do something else.
‘The idea that there might be an ideal time to learn is powerful for educational practice.’