One minute your 3-year-old is revving his fire truck, the next he’s balancing a block tower, then he’s splashing straight down a Slip ’n Slide. He can do so much. What he can’t seem to do, though, is focus on one thing for more than a nanosecond. Should you try harder to teach him self-control? Probably not, according to new research. The part of the brain that filters extraneous information and allows us to focus—the prefrontal cortex—isn’t fully developed until around age 4. So not only is your child’s behavior normal, young children actually learn better by not filtering and focusing, explains Sharon Thompson-Schill, PhD, a professor of psychology and neurology at the University of Pennsylvania. “When you learn in a broad, distractible way, you’re able to come across things you otherwise might not notice.” For example, young children can discover new ways of using objects (a paper towel roll as a baseball bat) better than adults, who have functional fixedness. “Lack of focus allows kids to process things in an unconventional way,” notes Dr. Thompson-Schill. And this free thinking gives way to creativity. So no need to worry when your kid’s mind and body wander from one thing to the next; it’s just his creative juices flowing. There’ll be time enough for him to learn to focus—grade school is right around the corner.

Learning Lessons

To help your child grow creatively, says Dr. Sharon Thompson-Schill:

Relax the rules. Young kids learn through unstructured experiences. So offer raw materials (paper and crayons, LEGOs and blocks) and then let him do his own thing.

Seek new opportunities. Learning can happen on a city street, in museums, at the zoo. A simple walk through the primate pavilion is a rich source of exploration for your child.

Focus on the bigger picture. Your child’s distractibility is what enables him to gather lots of information at once. Give him the time—and freedom—to soak up many things and discover his world.