Parents these days have a lot on their plate. Between work, home care, and watching over an attention-seeking child, it can be challenging to balance everything.
The challenges of child management is a different landscape from what it was 20 years ago. Back then, it’s still common to see only a parent working in the average household. Now, the typical situation is to have both parents working to support a comfortable lifestyle.
Due to this new normal, it can be a handful to deal with attention-seeking children. Naturally, your children will seek your attention, but finding a way to balance this means understanding what attention-seeking is and how to respond correctly.
Common Attention-seeking Behaviours?
Your child’s attention-seeking is how they seek your approval. At controlled levels, it is normal, but too much can lead to negative behaviours. From merely looking for ways to spend time with you, excessive attention can lead to a controlling personality. As a way to balance the scales, you first need to be able to spot attention-seeking behaviours.
Seeking attention can come in various forms. Here are some of the most common things that parents hear that signal your child wants you to pay attention to them.
- They raise their voice or create excessive noise.
- Asking for unnecessary questions repeatedly.
- Interrupting conversations between yourself and another adult.
- Demanding you listen to them.
- Start causing trouble, so you have to turn your attention to them.
Each of these behaviours signals that your child wants to get attention. As a parent, you’ve most likely seen one or all of these behaviours at one time or another. Dealing with it in the right manner will go a long way in preventing long term adverse behaviour.
Reasons Why Some Children Are Attention-seeking?
Children tend to seek attention from their parents because they want to spend quality time with you. It could also be that they are bored, hungry, or tired. The reason why your child is showing attention-seeking behaviour is not as important as learning to respond when they need attention empathically.
Keep in mind that attention-seeking is normal behaviour, especially for children between 3 to 7 years old. At this age, children are not yet able to tell the difference between their needs and wants. Moreover, their emotions and logic are still in development, meaning they don’t yet know how to articulate themselves properly. As such, a child will often resort to attention-seeking behaviours to get across what they feel.
Can You Give Your Child Too Much Attention?
Yes, continually responding to your child’s attention-seeking behaviour will encourage them to believe that they can get what they want from you every time. Many parents fail to understand or choose to ignore this fact. While giving your time to listen and address a child’s needs are essential, failure to set boundaries can lead to very demanding behaviours.
If your child notices that they can always command the centre of attention, regardless of the situation or consequence; they could become an attention addict. At that point, no matter how much time and attention you give, it is never enough.
Their behaviour could turn demanding and aggressive as they seek ways to get attention. Other children become helpless and passive. Either way, such attitudes show their insatiable need for your attention.
Some signs that you may be giving too much attention to your child include:
- setting up exception circumstances just for them,
- giving in to their demands, most, if not all the time,
- letting your children dictate and bend the rules,
As a parent, you want the best for your family. Striking a balance between neglect and overindulgence of your child’s attention-seeking is a must. Addressing your kid’s behaviour will help them grow into empathetic adults.
What To Do About an Attention-Seeking Child?
When your child seeks your attention, it is because they need something from you. If you notice that this attention seeking is starting to go overboard; you need to start setting boundaries and tell your child about them.
Parents often do not know that there are two main types of attention they give. There is positive attention and negative attention.
Positive attention is the acknowledgement of good behaviour. These can be words of praise, encouragement, closeness, or hugs. Positive attention will more likely lead to good behaviour and bring you closer to your child.
Negative attention happens when you give your child attention for misbehaviours. Doing so usually begins with you being upset about something they have done. Threats, interrogations, and lectures typically follow it. Giving your child negative attention is not a punishment for them. Instead, it tends only to increase misbehaviour.
Now, the question arises on how to deal with them to promote positive attention but diminishes the likelihood of negative attention. To gain a grasp of your child’s attention-seeking behaviour, you will need to enforce positive attention and find meaningful and useful ways to mitigate negative attention.
Catch them being good.
Keep an eye on your children and do your best to catch them performing an exemplary behaviour. The chance to give them positive comments and actions reinforces good behaviour. It encourages them to know you appreciate their efforts. Merit your child’s attention needs with positive actions will strengthen your bond as parent and child.
Ignore negative behaviours, not the child.
If your child starts to misbehave, do your best to remain calm from refraining from scolding, lecturing, nagging, and threatening punishment. Find a compose way to set them on a timeout for 3 to 5 minutes and use this time to calm yourself. After the time out, it can be beneficial to reassure them that they can do better and behave appropriately. As a follow-up, it would be good to engage them with positive activities such as assisting you with a task.
In doing so, you can appeal to their logical side and help develop it further. Staying calm and rational in your ways will teach them that even if they seek attention, there are boundaries and rules to follow. Moreover, it shows the benefit of thinking logically rather than on pure emotions.
Stay consistent.
Having the proper responses to everyday behaviour only works if you remain consistent. That means showing love and affection for positive actions and staying calm and composed during negative moments. It would be best if you also stayed consistent with the rules and boundaries you set. For example, no eating in the bedroom means for all time. Even if you’re in a good mood, you should stick to the rule and avoid giving in to their demands.
Repeat.
Making a habit of reinforcing boundaries will make sure that your child understands the value of attention. Through repeated and consistent efforts, you, as a parent, can begin to mould your child’s behaviour in a way that can work for both of you. With enough repetition, you can both start to build a more constructive relationship.
When To Ignore Attention-seeking Children?
Ignoring your child’s misbehaviour may sound like an absurd thing to do. Parents think that it means they are letting them get away with acting out. That is not altogether true. Instead, you should make use of “selective ignoring.” Selective ignoring is when you are aware of your child’s behaviour and choose to look the other way.
This parenting technique is useful for smaller misbehaviours such as raised voices or excessive activity like running or jumping. It will prove effective when combined with consistent action like discipline, reward, and time out.
Selective ignoring works because children will go to great lengths to gain your attention. They will resort to negative methods if they cannot get it positively. Showing them that behaviour such as crying, whining, screaming, and begging will result in nothing reinforces the idea that negative attitudes will get them nowhere.
As a result, you are teaching your child how to deal with their emotions in a socially appropriate manner. In the long run, it will develop their ability to use words well and learn how to properly convey the methods they want consolation.
Therapeutic Interventions For Attention-seeking Behaviour
Making use of decisive and concrete action will be the stepping stone in building a healthy and positive intervention to your child’s need for attention. Taking a therapeutic approach to addressing attention-seeking means understanding the habits and characteristics of your child. Find out what triggers certain behaviours in your child and build an environment of empathy and understanding.
Depending on your child’s personality, you can make use of one or more of these strategies to bring progress in preventing negative attention-seeking.
Find out actions that trigger attention-seeking.
Discovering what triggers your child’s attention-seeking opens up the door to addressing it. If your child starts to seek attention when they are bored, then filling their days with productive and meaningful activities will be the best way to go. On the other hand, if your child feels strained with the number of activities they have, scheduling breaks and pacing their tasks will be productive.
Offer choices when it comes to undesirable tasks.
Every child has a way of dealing with completing undesirable daily tasks such as getting dressed. These unwanted tasks can cause them to protest and seek your attention to do it for them or allow them not to do it at all. Even though the task is undesirable, getting them to accomplish it is still a must.
Address this form of attention-seeking by setting choices in such tasks. Let them choose the outfit or colour if it is about getting dressed. If it is about taking a bath, give the options on soap scents. These choices will feel like they have control and address their attention-seeking issue.
Find ways and time to integrate them into your daily tasks.
Your child’s need for family time also leads to attention-seeking. Integrating them into your daily tasks gives them the time they seek from you. You can ask them to help with cooking, cleaning, or even working. Even a small chore will show them their value in your life and shows that you pay attention to their desire for quality time.
A Serious Case of Attention-seeking Could Be ADHD
Behaviour linked to ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ), such as impulsivity, low concentration, and overactivity, is often generalized as normal attention-seeking behaviour.
ADHD has become an increasingly common neurodevelopmental disorder that usually appears in early childhood- usually before seven years old. ADHD makes it more challenging for children to control their responses to the environment around them. These responses include anything from movement to attentiveness to speech.
As a parent, it is paramount that you distinguish the difference between attention-seeking from symptoms of ADHD.
One way to distinguish is to pay attention to the frequency of symptoms in regard to situations. If they occur on isolated occasions and times, it is most likely on the side of attention-seeking. On the other hand, if you notice symptoms present across the board (at home, school, and play), you may want to take a closer look and seek professional advice.
In this case, it is best to seek the advice of a child psychologist for a diagnosis. With proper care, consistent check-ups, and the support of medication, ADHD is manageable. Detecting ADHD early on can bring peace of mind to your family.
Child Psychologist or Child Behaviour Specialist in Singapore
Seeking professional advice or help from child psychologists can be an excellent way to learn more about progressively dealing with attention-seeking children. With the changing landscape of family management, a child psychologist can help you unravel ways to address your child’s attention needs adequately.
Keep in mind that understanding your child’s behaviour is the key to opening the door to more constructive and empathetic interactions between the parent and child.
Children also experience anxiety, grief, and stress but may not know how to express their emotions appropriately. The Adelphi Psych Medical Clinic offers children a safe space to discuss their concerns and work with parents to address them.
For more options, you can browse through this list of the best child psychologists in Singapore.
