Every family with children has one. The one that is in your face, loud, argumentative, demands constant acknowledgement, makes every scene about him or herself, yes we all have the attention seeking child in our family. The one that has every parent in fits of vexation, trepedaiciously wondering what is to come next. Despite how much we love them, they are in hindsight our most difficult works of art. Despite addressing any situation with the best of intentions, our attention grabbing child will have us screeching out ultimatums, barking orders five minutes into the conversation.

Without disclosing who it is, my family definitely has one that dominates us all. A conversation with another person is riddled with her opinions, A T.V show or a book is never read or watched quietly on my part, for in my ear is her constant commentary. Sometimes the constant chattering, the need for attention is welcoming, it fills up the lonely hours and keeps you generally amused with the school playground politics, but unfortunately as in the case of most parents, free time is not a liberty that one possess especially when there are other children around, who equally require your time and attention. Most parenting days, you’d like to keep you head down and precariously navigate the stormy parenting seas without too much upheaval, but this is not the agenda of the attention seeking child. He or she will definitely have catastrophic issues about something, will feel obliged to whine and moan through most of the day and of course royally end the day with another emotional wringing spectacle of a scene. The most wisest course of action would be to of course not take the bait, to not really loose a gasket, but we are after all human and when pushed to the limits, we will jump and thus as we scream and shout, red in the face, fumes literally emerging from our ears, our attention seeking child has once again won another round, the rest of the family and the world forgotten our focus is solely on them!!  

Why do these certain “children” seek our attention?

Of course, the most easiest answer that comes to find, is personality. This is not the end all of it, personality does play a certain part but coupled with other factors tend to awaken the restless soul. Sometimes the child’s position in the family causes them to be disruptive. The older children might resent the inclusion of other siblings and will fight to maintain their parent’s attention that he or she enjoyed before there were interruptions. Also too much attention from a very young age causes the child to crave for it later when the parents start to reduce their focus. Of course it goes without saying that some children develop attention seeking disorders, which will need to be discussed with a medical professional for further treatment. But in many cases, our typical average parent will have some form of an attention seeker based on circumstance related behavior to deal with. This can be easier said than done, here are a few ways to fend of the attention seekers:

1. Attention seeking children usually display bad behavior to seek a reaction. Do not take the bait, walk away, do not engage in communicating with them when they are having a tantrum. Strike a conversation up when they are in a better mood and are more domicile. In this way you are telling the child that you will give him or her attention, but only when the behavior is acceptable.

2. If possible mark out time just for your two, tell your child that this is their uninterrupted time with them and to respect other people’s time at a later stage.

3. Always reward positive behavior, for example say your child usually is the first to grab their dinner, doesn’t take turns, wants the best in the car etc..then reward them when they wait their turn or allow someone else in first. In this way we are reinforcing the fact that good behavior gets your attention rather than bad.

4. Remember not to fall into each battle with your child. This will leave you exhausted and gasping for some relief from the parenting game. Let a few things go, for even the negative attention you give them is what they crave, they are the center of the problem and that is what they wanted.

5. Sometimes if your child has all of sudden started to display behavior that you think is attention seeking then there might be outside factors at play. You need to look into this further before you take any drastic action.

So as they say the fun and games in parenting always goes up a notch every year. Especially in your child’s formative years you will be stretched to the limits, mentally, dealing with each parenting problem. But remember these are minor hiccups and they are always temporary, for each parenting day dawns bright and unblemished and it is up to you how you choose to live it!

By Mayuri Jayasinghe