Recently when I was doing some research about the brain I read that multitasking is a myth – your brain can only focus on one thing at a time. Most of us in the Kidmin world multitask. I have prided myself on multitasking for years and now I’m reading it’s not very productive. As I thought about this idea of multitasking a light bulb went off in my brain. Could this be one of the reasons kids of divorce might not function too well at various times?”
If your brain can only focus on one thing at a time, it might very well be why kids of divorce can’t concentrate at church, at school and other places that require concentration. To a child and their brain thinking about mom and or dad in two separate houses and being worried about their siblings, their pets, which parent is picking me up tonight might and where am I going to sleep might equate to multitasking.
When you look at the definition of multitasking on Wikipedia you’ll read, “Human multitasking is the apparent performance by an individual of handling more than one task at the same time.” Now I realize the researchers are saying by multitasking one is switching from one activity to another. You are probably going to say the kids are only doing one activity such as scripture memory or listening to a story on Sunday morning.
While it might appear children in your group are only doing one physical activity you can be assured that their brains are on overload, which I think is going to affect how well they pay attention to the person reading a Bible story.