ChildrenUsing Parental Attention Wisely
One of the hardest lessons for many parents to learn is that children crave parental attention so much that they will gladly seek negative attention rather than settle for little or none. In addition, because parents are so intent on "fixing" their children, most of the parent-child interactions are negative in content and/or tone. Several years ago, one study of allegedly healthy families showed that for every positive statement made to a child in the course of the day, there were 17 negative ones! But children are supposed to make mistakes, lots of them. That's the nature of being children. Somehow, in the midst of parental anxieties about how tough the world will be for their children-as-adults and parental guilt about not spending enough time with their children, we are obsessed with trying to change children into mini-adults.
Many parenting books overemphasize complex, verbal discussions around children's inappropriate behavior, ignoring the fact that children probably give you no more than 15-30 seconds of focused attention and that they learn mostly through action and experience, not through the abstraction of conversation. Thus, if you see that your older child has mistreated a younger sibling, you are likely to spend a few minutes explaining and chastising and then punishing the aggressor. While this is not totally inappropriate, it is generally far more effective to virtually ignore the perpetrator and focus on the victim. At most, tell the older child what he did was unacceptable and send him to his room. But, if you primarily focus on giving extra attention to the victim, the other child will soon learn that picking on a sibling doesn't earn him the usual extra attention (albeit, negative) but only gets goodies for the sibling. That is much more likely to change the behavior.
Getting children off to school in the morning is often a process of nagging, cajoling, even screaming to push the child step-by-step through the tasks required to get out the door on time. Bottom line - the more a child resists getting ready on her own, the more parental attention she gets. The child who acts more responsible is virtually ignored. What's wrong with this picture? I suggest you stop taking so much responsibility for the child's responsibility to get ready and offer to spend some time playing or reading if the child is ready on time. This reinforces the desired behavior rather than the undesired.
Similar strategies help at bedtime. Regular time spent reading to or playing with a child just before going to sleep is a reward for being ready for bed on time. If the child isn't ready, the activity is skipped. This can start at very young ages, steadily increasing how much of the getting ready the child is expected to do herself. The same approach with homework. When it's done, let's play. Spend less time being the teacher - just expect the child to make a reasonable effort at the work and let the teacher deal with the errors - spend more time enjoying your child as a parent in response to the child acting "reasonably responsible." This is the tricky part - what is reasonable? Remember children ARE children. They have many years to learn skills. A little sloppiness, carelessness, taking short-cuts is pretty normal behavior.
Continuing the theme of effective use of positive attention, one of the favorites is that whenever a mother needs to be on the phone, it seems to be a signal for a child to demand attention. So...prior to making an important phone call or when you receive one, take a moment to suggest to your young child that you need some quiet time (using an actual timer can be helpful) and if the child is cooperative, at the end of the call you will come find the child and spend a few minutes together.
Room cleaning is an issue that drives many parents bonkers. Most children love having everything out on the floor and don't understand the adult logic of putting everything away just to pull it all out again. Anyway, make it a joint process. Parents generally don't spend enough one-to-one time with their children. Doing chores together is an excellent opportunity for intimate conversations to take place while actually getting some work done. Instead of lots of nagging and negative attention, it becomes a time associated with positive attention.
There are three key points to all of this. First, getting your attention is one of the strongest desires of all children, regardless of age. Learn to use it wisely and you will end up with less tension and more of the desired behaviors. Second, by spending more time interacting with your child in positive rather than negative ways, you build a warmer, closer relationship that provides the desired context for your child wanting to please and be more cooperative. Finally, by reducing nagging, yelling and criticizing, you will end up with a child who feels more positive about herself, which is one of the important objectives of being a parent.
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