“Attention-seeking is not a negative thing. It’s a signal that a child needs you. Maybe not at that moment all the time, but they need you. More than they are getting you now. It’s a signal to plan some special time with them. #parenting #kids #family #connection”- Dr. Emily King
Parenting your own path
What is your experience? My kid has always been “attention seeking”; he has high anxiety, sensory issues and past trauma experiences that create a very uncertain world for him which is hard for him to feel safe, to make sense of his environment and process everything around him.
“Attention seeking “ is just an ABA term to describe behaviors that behaviorists see as inappropriate and something to “get rid of.”
Replacing the behavior is now the goal, yet it is done without understanding the “WHY?” of the behavior. But we must understand what lies beneath the behavior we can see. We were told this so many times by my son’s behaviorists, but ignoring him or trying to replace this behavior with something else, without even understanding what he is trying to communicate to us, only created more issues because we were not “listening” to him. Yes, it was communicating through behaviors because he wasn’t capable to communicate any other way.
We were told to ignore him, otherwise he will see it as his behavior is getting what he wants. When in fact, this is not the case.
His behavior was trying to communicate he needed to connect with us. He needed us to help him feel safe and co regulate through our presence, compassion and calmness.
His behaviors were his only way to communicate this need. Ignoring him was rejection and only exaggerated his need to feel safe and connected. We are his safe loving trust worthy caregivers. Turning our back on him sends a very strong and scary message that we are not his safe place or trust worthy. This can have long term devastating effects on the child and the parent child relationship.
So if we call it “connection seeking” rather than “attention seeking”, it shifts our mindset to seeing our child as struggling, needing our help; not being a problem or intentionally misbehaving. It really makes a difference
No comments :
Post a Comment