Is your child clingy? Do you worry that she’s “too attached?” Is his behavior attention-seeking? These are common behaviors that parents often find themselves grappling with. These parents are often told to ignore children when they appear to be seeking attention because it is a popular opinion that giving children the attention they seek will reward or reinforce negative behaviors. Relating to this advice, Dr. Gordon Neufeld of the Neufeld Institute says this: “What else is there to want? And if we see a child who wants attention, why wouldn’t we give it to them? Why wouldn’t we meet these basic needs of affection, attention, of mattering and significance?”
From a Positive Parenting standpoint, behavior is always communication. When children seek attention in negative ways, this is a cry for help. By ignoring the child, we are ignoring their plea. When children are clingy and needy and we ignore this need, we are rejecting them. If children are seeking attention and attachment, they are in need of attention and attachment, so we can at least begin to understand their behavior and formulate a response from this place rather than from an idea that they are needlessly seeking attention and should be ignored. Why does our thought pattern matter here? When we see a child as behaving badly to get attention, we feel justified in ignoring them. We harden. When we see a child as crying out for help, we feel moved to assist. We soften. The need is real no matter how they go about trying to get the need met.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that you necessarily give in to demands or rearrange your plans. It simply means that you first seek to understand what is driving the behavior and secondly that you keep in mind that you aren’t trying to manage an inconvenience, in the words of Kittie Frantz, but you are raising a human being. This helps you focus on the person, not on the behavior. When you are focused on the person, you are now in a mindset to be able to effectively deal with the situation.
For example, if your child is clingy and doesn’t want you to go to dinner with your partner while she stays with a trusted caregiver, I’m not suggesting you cancel your plans. Rather, I’m suggesting that you empathize with her feelings as you set your boundary. So, instead of ignoring her cries or sneaking off when she’s occupied, you’d say, “I know you don’t want me to go. I see that you’re upset. I’ll be back soon and we’ll have lots of cuddles then.” Make sure to follow through with the extra cuddles! Surrounding the time you must be away from her, you can help “fill her cup” by giving her extra attention and affection. This could be setting aside time for a “date” for the two of you, reading together, or playing. When you provide more than she is asking for, she will begin to feel at ease emotionally. She will feel assured that she matters to you, and this will allow emotional rest.
When children are exhibiting troubling behavior that appears to be attention-seeking, you can set a limit on that behavior while still providing the attention and love needed by following the 3 steps to positive discipline discussed in full detail here.
First, assess the need. What is causing your child to feel a sudden need for more attention? Has there been a change in his environment? Perhaps it’s just a period of growth and new understanding, like suddenly realizing you could pass away. It isn’t always immediately obvious what is causing the behavior, but at least when you seek to understand rather than moving straight to consequences, you’ll be more likely to uncover the hurt and help your child heal.
Second, calm yourself and your child. It can be hard to keep your cool when your child is pushing all your buttons! Create a calming area where you can both go to regulate your emotions. This both gets the child out of the situation and teaches emotional intelligence. Calm brains take in and process information better than dysregulated brains, so wait until everyone’s rational brains prevail before moving forward to solve the issue. During this time, showing empathy will help your child regulate more quickly. Remember, kindness and empathy aren’t rewards but keys to your child’s heart.
Third, teach and problem-solve. Here’s where you begin to help your child understand how to communicate and behave better. This is a critical step that punishments such as grounding and time-out leave out, because without giving kids knowledge of how to improve, we can’t expect them to do better. This is also where you begin the work of healing the wound causing the misbehavior, if such is the case. If your child is feeling jealous over a new sibling or relationship or is suddenly developing big fears and worries, you can spend extra time with your child to reassure her and talk with her about her thoughts. Purposeful play is also helpful for working through emotions.
We all have a need for connection and attention. While the behaviors used to gain this attention may not be optimal, a child’s need for it is very real and should never be ignored.