Mechanisms of
Attentional Avoidance

Like the story of Phillip, soon kids find that if they day dream about skate boarding or hanging out with friends, physically being in math class does not feel as bad. Their minds become well-trained to shift focus away from school work and  homework, and toward more pleasant images. This is a highly sophisticated, effective and well trained defense system that is crafted to deal with the aversive feelings that school and homework cause.  It is not a defect or deficit, but a skill. It is a highly skilled, coping mechanism that, at the moment, serves the child. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that most of these children can attend for long hours to activities they enjoy such computer games, Game Boy and similar activities.

Though these activities use the same parts of the brain as do assignments, children’s attentional patterns are very different.  The difference is not the content of the task, but the child’s feelings toward it.  They like computer games, so they can attend to them for a long time. They dislike assignments, so their attention is highly trained to avoid the noxious feelings that doing assignments causes.  Sure, this is self-defeating behavior in the long run.  But, children are not interested in the long run. Their concern is getting to the next recess, not college. Until the emotionally arousing interaction patterns around assignments, parents and school are corrected, making progress with academic content is very difficult, no matter what else you do.

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