A Macaroni Kid Reader Asks:
My oldest child who is five, keeps doing things to irritate me – like making really loud noises around me when I’m working in the kitchen or rolling his cars right on the newspaper I’m reading. I can see that it’s for attention, but as a stay at home mom, I am spending a lot of with both of my kids. Telling him to stop doesn’t work and yelling stops it for awhile, but I feel awful when I yell. How should I deal with this?
This is a problem I actually come across a lot in my work with families. You’re right that it is about attention, and you can reduce this negative attention seeking behavior in a short space of time.
The Calmer, Easier, Happier Parenting strategy that will help the most is incorporating one-on-one time or what I call ‘Special Time’. A few years ago a mom told me this story. She had three kids under the age of five and her five-year-old son had started the annoying habit of bumping or swatting her whenever he walked past her in the kitchen. He was getting an irritated reaction from her whenever he did it, but that didn’t deter him from continuing to do it.
She realized that although she was spending a lot of time with her three kids, she was almost always multi-tasking and wasn’t ever really giving them her full attention during the day. She wondered if her son’s way of dealing with his resentment and the time she spent taking care of his siblings was to get her attention however he could.
She decided to carve out Special Time with him every day. She was already staggering the kids’ bedtimes by half an hour, so this gave her the perfect time slot for Special Time. After she read a bedtime story to her middle daughter, she and her son would have their time together playing cards. They both started to look forward to this time together each night. Within a very short time, the bumping and swatting behavior disappeared altogether.
So what I recommend is to think about how you can incorporate one-on-one time into your day or evening – even 10 to 15 minutes makes a difference. Staggering bedtimes is a great way to do it or perhaps when one child is napping. Think of Special Time as nourishment that your child needs. It also strengthens the bond between you and your child. Our children know that we love them, but when we consistently arrange for this quality time to happen, it shows our kids that we not only love them but that we also like them and want to spend time with them.
One-on-one Special Time has been shown to reduce a lot of resistance and negative attention-seeking behavior. Because your child is getting something he needs, namely your undivided attention, he will become more and more cooperative with less need to seek your attention in negative ways. And family life will become calmer, easier and happier!
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