Children Crave Their Parents’ Attention

a. Children crave their parents’ attention. Parents’ attention is like food for children; they need the attention of their parents in order to survive. Without proper attention, children cannot live, let alone thrive.

b. A parent’s attention can be directed at the child’s positive, negative and neutral behaviors. Positive behaviors are behaviors that are acceptable and desirable – behaviors that the parent wants to see more of. Negative behaviors are the opposite: behaviors that the parents want to discourage. Neutral behaviors are behaviors that the child does that do not have a positive or negative value to them, such as sitting down, walking, or playing. As you can see, most behaviors will fall under the category of either positive or negative.

c. As mentioned in the previous blog, Catch Your Child Being Good, since children crave their parents’ attention, and they do not distinguish between attention directed at their positive or negative behaviors, the more parents direct attention towards a negative behavior of the child, the child will unintentionally do that behavior again because the child knows that will get their parents’ attention. Thus, the perpetual cycle of negative interactions between the parent and the child is generated: the child performs a negative behavior, the parent pays attention to it, the child sees that as receiving the parent’s attention, and will, unintentionally, do it again, because the child wants the parent’s attention.

d. So, the key to giving attention to children is to give them the attention they need, PROACTIVELY, BEFORE they ask for it, usually, by doing undesirable, eye-catching, loud, behaviors. If you find it difficult to find a “positive” behavior to express your attention on, comment on their “neutral” behaviors. “Oh Johnny, I see that you are sitting on the couch.” “MinJoo, you are watching TV.” “It’s nice to see you eating dinner.” “JinGyu, I see that you are drawing a line and a circle.” These behaviors are all very basic life functions, which may not deserve any commenting on, but they convey, to the child, that parents are giving their child their attention, and the child can soak the attention in. Once they feel as though they are getting attention for the “neutral” and “positive” behaviors, children will not feel the urge to “act out” to get their parents’ attention.