A Lost Secret: How To Get Kids To Pay Attention

June 21, 20184:34 PM ET

Heard on All Things Considered

Michaeleen Doucleff

Gelmy Tun Borgos helps in the kitchen making tortillas with her mother in their home in a small village in the Yucatan.

Adriana Zehbrauskas for NPR

'Of course she can go to the store by herself'

So maybe the Maya children are more attentive in the origami/toy experiment — not because they have better attention spans — but because they are more motivated to pay attention. Their parents have somehow motivated them to pay attention even without being told.
To see this Maya parenting firsthand, I traveled down to a tiny Maya village in Yucatan, Mexico, and visited the home of Maria Tun Burgos. Researchers have been studying her family and this village for years.
On a warm April afternoon, Tun Burgos is feeding her chickens in backyard. Her three daughters are outside with her, but they doing basically whatever they want.
The oldest daughter, Angela, age 12, is chasing a baby chick that's gotten out of the pen. The middle girl, Gelmy, age 9, is running in and out of the yard with neighborhood kids. Most of the time, no one is really sure where she is. And the littlest daughter, Alexa, who is 4 years old, has just climbed up a tree.
"Alone, without mama," the little daredevil declares.
Right away, I realize what these kids have that many American kids miss out on: an enormous amount of freedom. The freedom to largely choose what they do, where they go, whom they do it with. That means, they also have the freedom to control what they pay attention to.

Even the little 4-year-old has the freedom to leave the house by herself, her mother says.

Gelmy, 9, and sister Alexa, 4, climbing trees in the backyard of their family home in the Yucatan Peninsula.

Adriana Zehbrauskas for NPR

"Of course she can go shopping," Tun Burgos says. "She can buy some eggs or tomatoes for us. She knows the way and how to stay out of traffic."
Now the kids aren't just playing around in the yard. They're still getting work done. They go to school. They do several after-school activities — and many, many chores. When I was with the family, the oldest girl did the dishes even though no one asked her to, and she helped take care of her little sisters.