HOW
TO DEAL WITH CHILDREN
DEMANDING CONSTANT ATTENTION:
DEMANDING CONSTANT ATTENTION:
Mr. Montana has been up since six in the morning working hard to complete the family taxes. It is now late in the afternoon, and his youngest son, Harrison, has become quite antsy. Mr. Montana has already stopped work several times to give Harrison the attention he was craving. After fixing Harrison a grilled cheese sandwich and helping him set up his G.I. Joes for battle, Mr. Montana began work again. In only a few minutes Harrison is back in his father’s study.
“Daddy, I want to go to the park, Please Daddy Please,” the young boy pleads.
“Harrison, in a few minutes I’m almost finished with my work and then I’ll take you.”
“But Daddy, I want to go now,” Harrison shouts as he firmly presses on the power button, shutting down his father’s computer. Mr. Montana, rises in disbelief of what his son has just done. He grabs Harrison by the shoulder, pushes him out of his office and slams the door shut.
DISCUSSION
Two issues emerge in this situation: 1) what is a reasonable amount of time for a preschool child to entertain himself; and 2) how can parents constructively respond to a child’s constant bids for attention.
Mr. Montana had unreasonable expectations that Harrison would be able to entertain himself all day. If he planned to do tax work all day, he would have done better to arrange a “play date” for Harrison at a friend’s or hire a nephew or niece to do activities with Harrison during the day.
Children whine and insist on being attended to when tired, hungry, bored, or sick. They also whine when they feel left out or neglected. Some children, however, continue to whine and call attention to themselves even after all of these common causes are attended to.
The child who whines or shows off constantly for attention seems to believe that she is invisible, unimportant or insignificant whenever she is not the center of attention. Whining of showing off is her misguided attempt to make contact with people and receive signs that she is noticed.
SOLUTION
The parent’s task is three-fold: 1) extinguish the child’s misguided attention-seeking actions. These are alienating the child from the family and others—making matters worse; 2) help the child become more secure in her sense of belonging; and 3) help her use socially-constructive methods for making contact and belonging with significance in the family.
An effective way to extinguish whining and other attention-seeking is for the parent to neutrally ignore these actions or find some plausible reason for excusing himself to another room. This way the parent will not become sucked into the child’s bid for attention.
An effective way to help the child feel more secure in his belonging is for the parent to spend 10-minutes of “special, individual time” with the child at a set time each day. During special time the parent engages in the activity requested by the child. He times their play with a timer and finishes promptly with a friendly, “That was fun. I look forward to special time again tomorrow”.
To help the child belong in more constructive and endearing ways, the parent can teach her how to care for herself and be helpful to other family members.
