What To Do About an Attention-Seeking Child

Children who are attention-seeking have a legitimate need. It’s our job to teach them how to get it in a legitimate way.

The first question to ask ourselves is whether the child has a point. Is he showing us by his behavior that we’re not involved enough? It’s easy to get so caught up with work, chores, activities, and responsibilities that we don’t spend enough time specifically interacting with our children. A shocking statistic is that the average American child only gets 3.5 minutes a day of uninterrupted individual attention from her parents! When that’s the case, the child doesn’t need discipline so much as the parents need to reorder priorities.

Parents who were themselves neglected, who are temperamentally more distant, or who are struggling with mental illness need to work to overcome their own issues for the sake of their children’s psychological welfare. Little kids need to be cuddled, played with, talked to, read to, and tucked in at night to be emotionally secure and strong. Big kids need their folks to share activities and meaningful conversations, to attend their events, and, yes, to give them hugs and pats on the back.

When children are getting plenty of parental juice but are still misbehaving, they have somehow misunderstood what they need to do to engage others. Then some remedial work needs to be done. It comes down to these not-so-easy steps:

1. Catch them being good. Give attention for appropriate behavior. Look for opportunities to make a positive comment, to pat a child on the shoulder, to share an activity, and to have a conversation. Fill up the attention hole with good stuff as many times a day as you can. Surely we can all do better than that 3.5 minute daily average!

2. Ignore the misbehavior but not the child. When the child misbehaves, resist the temptation to lecture, nag, scold, yell, or punish. Negative reactions will only keep the negative interaction going. Instead, simply quietly send her to timeout (no more than one minute per year of age). The less talking about the misbehavior, the better. When the time’s up, invite her to come back to join the family. Give her reassurance that you know she can behave now. Then find a way to engage with her positively for at least a few minutes before moving on. The same principle holds for older kids. If they won’t take a timeout, you can. Withdraw, take a breath, and make a rational decision about appropriate consequences. Institute the consequence without drama and re-engage positively. (see here).

3. Be consistent. It’s the only way children know we mean what we say.

4. Repeat. Repeat until the child gets it. Repeat whenever misbehavior is more than a momentary lapse. Repeat more than you think should be necessary. Do it until it becomes a pattern of interaction in your family’s life.

It’s normal to need attention from others. In fact, it’s a fundamental human need. Kids who are secure in the knowledge that the adults in their lives are interested in them don’t need to act up — at least most of the time. (Everyone can have an off-day now and then.) By filling them up with love and attention and by consistently redirecting negative behaviors, we can help our children learn how to get and give the positive attention that is fundamental to healthy relationships. Not surprisingly, when we parents are so positively connected to our children, we benefit too.

What To Do About Attention-Seeking Kids