The Whole Parent Podcast
The Whole Parent Podcast
Attention Seeking #016
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Ever found yourself perplexed by your child's seemingly endless quest for attention? We're peeling back the layers on why kids clamor for the spotlight and how you might be contributing to it without even realizing it. Tap into a wealth of compassion-fueled insights and practical strategies as we tackle the myth that ignoring attention-seeking behaviors is the best route. From the seven-year-old who can’t play alone to understanding the unique needs of children with ADHD, discover how to guide your little ones towards healthy, independent connections.
Remember the times when a simple hug could make everything better? That's the power of targeted, reassuring love we're advocating for in today's conversation. I'm drawing from my own journey as a parent with ADHD to share the kind of attention that enriches the parent-child bond and caters to neurodivergent children. You'll hear not just theories, but real-life applications that can turn around your child's playtime blues and bolster their emotional resilience.
Wrapping things up, we're not just talking about managing attention-seeking antics; we're building a foundation for our children's future.
Listen to heartwarming stories, like the one about my own son, that illustrate the triumphs of nurturing our kids' independence within a supportive framework. And yes, we're fostering frustration tolerance, but not at the expense of our relationship with our children. This is your roadmap to raising well-adjusted kids who know their emotional needs are just as important as their physical ones.
Join us, and let's navigate this parenting adventure together.
As you give that attention that he craves. The key is to give that targeted attention and then, when you're not giving it, make sure it's very clear. There's nothing you could ever do that's going to make me love you any less. And this attention I understand that you want to be near me and I'm not going anywhere that can be massively, massively helpful, and you will see instantly a lot of those behaviors that seem to be boundary testing and testing the relationship. Hello and welcome to the whole parent podcast, so excited for you to be here with us today with me.
Speaker 1:I don't know who us is, I don't have any guests on this episode, but we are talking about something that is near and dear to my heart. We're talking about attention seeking behaviors. This is one of the most common myths that I run into, which is that, if your kids are practicing attention seeking behaviors, the proper or the correct way to navigate that which, by the way, a lot of these attention seeking behaviors can be really annoying right, it can feel not good to us, and we'll get into that today, but the proper way to navigate that is by ignoring them or trying to belittle them in some way or otherwise condition them out of these attention seeking behaviors, and so if you're tuning into this episode and that's what you were talking about growing up, if that's what was leveled against you growing up, you are in the right place. This is what we're going to talk about today on the whole parent podcast. I think this is such an important perspective to take and a conversation to have, because this is one of the primary reasons why parents get themselves into difficult situations with their kids because they don't understand kids inherent need yes, need for attention. So I'm going to dive right into our three questions today. I'm going to try to make this a little bit of a shorter episode. Our episodes are beginning longer and longer and I've gotten some feedback from people saying hey, john, just get to the point, cut the BS. We love to hear you talk. Well, I hope maybe you don't, maybe you just like the information and you can tolerate it, and I will always recommend to anybody who has not done this yet you can always listen to me on like 1.5 or even 2x speed too, if you're struggling to get through episodes. You just don't feel like you have time. You can always do that as well, but for those who are listening on your commute. Mark, you know who you are and you're trying to find out today about attention seeking behaviors. Let's dive into it, and I'm going to try and make it a little bit shorter than I typically do, because we've been getting a little long in the tooth.
Speaker 1:The first question comes from Robin. She says hi, I'm Robin. I'm struggling with my seven-year-old daughter, emma, who's constantly seeking attention, seems like no matter what I do, she's acting out and creating drama to get noticed. I want to give her the attention that she needs, but I also want to teach her more appropriate ways to seek it. For example, if I play with her for 30 minutes, then I tell her I have to go make dinner. She can't seem to find ways to play on her own. Instead, she'll go and do something that she knows she's not allowed to do, like dump out all of the art stuff or go bother her little brother. Robin, I have a seven-year-old who has a hard time finding things to do on his own, and so I really, really empathize with your question. How can we help kids to play independently and also help them to have their emotional and attention needs met? The short answer to this and this is something that I've said, and maybe this is going to be just our mantra for this episode. This is something I've said in the past. This is something that I said on the episode with Eli.
Speaker 1:If you haven't listened to that episode with Attachment Nerd Eli Harwood yet, please go and check that out. It was a really amazing episode. My wife listened to that one. She was like, oh man, I feel like this is the best episode of the podcast ever. And she doesn't listen to every episode, so maybe that's just. She only listens when she's interested and she hears me talk about this stuff ad nauseum at home, so she's kind of like all right, I heard this podcast just over dinner, so I don't need to listen to it again when I'm driving to work. But in that episode with Eli, we talked about this mantra that I have, which is kids would rather have all of your attention some of the time rather than some of your attention all of the time, and I think that this might be the best piece of advice for you, robin, and I don't want to give.
Speaker 1:You Say that this is going to dismiss this, that this is going to absolutely work 100% and that your kid's never going to need your attention anymore. That's not true. Attention is a natural and again we'll get into that a little later in the episode but attention is a natural and important thing for kids to get and for kids to go after. It's a normal thing for them to seek that. But in this case, you may be running into this issue of kids who just need more targeted attention for shorter periods of time and then to not try and split your attention and give them half of it in other times. So why do I say this? Well, basically, kids can become conditioned, and this is especially true of neurodivergent kids, but it's not exclusively true.
Speaker 1:I'm not diagnosing anybody on this podcast I've said it a million times. I'm not a doctor. I can't diagnose anybody with ADHD or ASD or anything like that. But what doctors who do diagnose people with that? One of the things that they have identified is that commonly, kids who have those dopamine-inhibiting neurodivergencies like ADHD will oftentimes act out in order to get attention, to have that dopamine need fulfilled, and these kids oftentimes feel like they have just a never-ending cup Right, like you could fill them with all of your attention in time, and it just doesn't even scratch the surface.
Speaker 1:They just want more of you. They just want more of you. Well, for those kids, what they really need and actually all kids, I think what they really need is targeted attention, that's, for shorter periods of time, rather than this half-attention thing that you can do and the problem with giving a kid half your attention, right? So like you're writing an email for work and you're just kind of like, okay, you know, oh, yeah, I see that. Okay, oh, like I'm cooking dinner right now, like you said, that's what you're struggling with, rob. And like cooking dinner right now, like yep, that's really cool. Like, oh, good job with that picture. That like half-attention thing is a tease. It basically tells your kid like hey, if you're more engaging, I'll give you all of my attention. It's much more clear and, as Brené Brons says, being clear is kind to tell them this is not a time when I can give you my attention, and when I'm giving you my attention, I'm going to give you all of my attention.
Speaker 1:So if you have a kid who's, whatever you're doing, you're playing with them, independent play. You know, this is one of the best ways that you can play with kids, who seem like they have a never-ending need for your attention, is to have child-directed play with you, so playing with your kid, but in a way in which they're directing the play. This can help them to become a little bit more self-reliant on their ability to kind of entertain themselves, because they're not just relying on you as the cruise director or you know, the person who's just constantly keeping them engaged, and you're just going from one activity to another, you're allowing them to drive it and that kind of builds that ability. Okay, well then, I can. You know I can do that on my own too. So when you're doing these targeted times of play, you want to give them all of your attention.
Speaker 1:So if you have a problem with your phone which, by the way, I do so I'm just just call it out. I have a problem with my phone. Me and my phone are in an inappropriate, toxic relationship. Sometimes my phone just seems to call out to me at very inappropriate times. I'm trying to fall asleep. My phone's just like hey, hey, look up that article that you were like half done reading earlier. You know that's on my phone. She is. She is a terrible, terrible influence on my life.
Speaker 1:Social media Obviously I do this as part of work, so social media like Not not a good thing for me most of the time, and so because of that, I have this real problem where, if my kids are trying to play with me, if they aren't holding all of my attention, intentionally, right, so so as a person, by the way, I am diagnosed with ADHD, so I've had ADHD for my whole life. As it's a developmental disability or disorder, depending on how you want to refer to it, I'm fine calling a disorder disability. You know, for me you don't have to own those labels if that's not something that's comfortable for you. But because of this, this is a developmental thing. In my life I've had this, you know, obviously for my whole life. I've. When I was 10, 11 years old, I had these same struggles, but without a phone. And so what?
Speaker 1:What happens is if something is not actively engaging and novel to me, if something is boring to me, it feels like a such a chore to do it. And kids they play very repetitively, typically right, like they're investigating the world, and so expected, kind of Lacking novelty. Play is what's normal for kids, because everything feels unique and new to kids and so expected is comfortable, and so kids will play in this very repetitive way. They'll listen to the same song over and over and over. That's a normal kid thing to do. That's a good thing for kids to do. That's how they learn and the world that they're around. They'll want to play the same card game over and over and over or whatever. They'll want to play the same, you know, with their little guys, with you, or whatever, over and over and over. And that gets really repetitive for me.
Speaker 1:And so if my phone is within my reach, it's almost impossible for me to actively engage. And so what I do when I'm gonna take one of these targeted times of playing with my kids is like physically take my phone and I put it away for me. So I put it in my room, you know, on my nightstand, or I plug it in somewhere right, I use, I use it as an opportunity. I look at the silver lining. Hey, my phone's always dying, so I'm always posting and making these videos. So I might as well just go grab my phone right now and just go plug it in. I'm gonna need to use it later for x, y and z, whatever. And when I get that phone away from me, then I can actually physically engage. But it's not always my phone right.
Speaker 1:There was a time about six months ago or three months ago, I should say when I was, there was some real traumatic things for me happening at my other job and it was like my attention was constantly focused on, you know, like the what, if, what, what's gonna happen here, like how's this gonna work out, here's how's this gonna shape out. And because of that I couldn't even be present when I didn't have my phone, and so I had to practice therapy techniques of saying, okay, here are some intrusive thoughts that are just kind of cycling here, some, you know, circular thoughts that are essentially just anxiety producing, like I'm just reminiscing and focusing on things I could be doing or what might be happening or what I've done in the past, and I'm focusing on those things. And I actually had to physically say, okay, I'm gonna think about these things later, after I'm done playing with my kids, and for the next five minutes 15 minutes, whatever in your case, you said you had 30 minutes of playtime. I am just gonna be so incredibly targeted in that attention and and, and that's what I do. And then at the end of that so we're gonna set expectations around that we're gonna say, okay, I have about five more minutes and then I got to go whatever. So we're gonna, same way that you know if your kids doing something enjoyable at the Park or at trampoline park or whatever they're the four they're doing something they like Anytime that's happening, you want to give your kid a countdown or or some. So some way of setting expectations. Okay, when this is over, I'm gonna do x, y and z, so I'm gonna set those expectations. I've got about about five more minutes to play. After we play. Then it's gonna be time for me to go make dinner.
Speaker 1:From that point on, I am not going to give them part of my attention. I'm gonna really try and give them. I'm not gonna ignore them, but I'm gonna be really boring, like I'm not gonna give them that Target attention and I'm just gonna refer back to hey, yeah, we had that time to play, and I know this is frustrating and what does other time to play later, but I can't. You know I got to focus on this right now. This is what I'm doing right now and that delineation of here is where I'm gonna give you all of my attention and here you know what I'm. I'm really gonna be focused on something else now and you have to find some way to independently play, that can be really, really helpful.
Speaker 1:Then here's the here's the trap that we fall into we don't give them what to do instead. Because when we give them what to do instead, then they become dependent and reliant on us and essentially that's a way of playing. Hey, I want you to go build a tower over there with Legos, you know, and make it as tall as you can. Right, seems like a very reasonable thing. It's independent thing for them to do. But now that they're doing it because of your instructions, you're still their plate mate, and so they do it. And now you're, you're not giving them the attention and Engagement that they want. Even though they stay in their mind, they're still playing with you. Now they're like man, like I got to do something to get their attention. How would I go pick up my little brother? How would I go, you know, make a mess of the art supplies? These are ways to get your attention. When they perceive that they have part, but not all of your attention.
Speaker 1:And again, especially kids who are neurodivergent, this is the tool and tactic that they use. Now Is it possible that you're just not giving enough targeted attention to fill that cup? Yes, but it's also possible that your kid is essentially just gonna have a never-ending Desire for this. That's. It's a bottomless cup. You can fill and fill and fill, and it won't matter. If that's the case, they are gonna have to learn a little bit of frustration, tolerance and patience, and at seven years old they are totally ready to learn frustration, frustration, tolerance and patience, and it's good for them. You can even process with them after the fact hey, I, I know how frustrating it is to want to play with someone and not be able to Play with someone because I'm not available. You can do that frustration, tolerance building, but it's good for them. And I'll say that this is true also for like four-year-olds, right, any time after that really really difficult two and three age, where they really have no ability to have a sense of time and they Really struggle with any sort of routine. After that point, you should really be working on frustration, tolerance as a life skill, and so this isn't intentionally frustrating your child right, it's not terrorizing your child, just frustrates them but but Focusing on and working on that type of life skill in the context of hey, when you're not available, you're not available and that's okay.
Speaker 1:Your parents put all this tremendous pressure on themselves to be like their child's Entertainment. You know, it's like they're like the dancing monkey with the symbols. And then you like wind up the box and, like they're Me, like parents think that that's what they have to be. And and this is where I think a lot of the screen Addiction kind of stuff comes from is when parents get so overwhelmed that they can't be that. Then they go. Well, I got a. I have to give them a stand-in, I have to give them Cocoa Mill and I have to give them miss Rachel. I have to give them something to keep them occupied, because otherwise they're just gonna harass me the entire time.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, robin, if you need to utilize a screen for a period of time so that you can do your thing, zero shame. But if you feel like any time you can't engage your child, you are reliant on a screen, then we have to talk about some some more healthy digital hygiene. But if you're like, yeah, you know what. I got this dinner party coming up tonight and I got like my, I got to do all this extra cooking, I got this extra cleaning and I'm just gonna throw my kid on a screen for 15 minutes because I just can't deal right now. By all means, it's a tool, like, use it.
Speaker 1:But if you find yourself constantly reliant on that because you just cannot have them be frustrated for any period of time, then we got to come up with some, some frustration tolerance and, by the way, many adults were raised in such a way, especially Gen Z. Like Many of the kids who were raised in Gen Z, they were just never. They never built that frustration tolerance and it's not a healthy like. I'm not bashing Gen Z right now, I'm just saying that their parents messed up, they didn't give them the frustration tolerance that they needed and it was, by all accounts, probably not Because they were like trying to mess them up, but because they were like, yeah, my kid always wants my attention and I can't give it to them and I don't have the support system right like.
Speaker 1:This is the thing in the 1950s, in the 1960s, even up through the 1980s, there was this level of like okay, go play outside, go find another neighbor to bother and you know, go play with your cousins and next door, go to grandma's house, look whatever. And as our villages have shrunk and as our communities have shrunk and we just don't have that anymore, then so much more is on parents. And because so much of more is on parents, but yet parents have to work more Then they ever have in in the last hundred years in Western society, parents are working longer hours. Even if it's from home, then they ever have to make the same wage or less. It becomes really really frustrating and feels impossible. And so attention is something that you really really have to understand.
Speaker 1:The the core of this is to give your kid all of your attention. It targeted spurts. That's totally a hundred percent for them. Right in those moments you are going to be sold out for them. And Then I'm not saying you withdraw in some harsh way or you don't, you know, listen to them and continue to empathize with them when they're frustrated. But then you're gonna say and this is the time when I'm not gonna give you my attention, and it's not that I don't love you and it's not that I don't care about you, and you can be here in the room with me, right, I'm not pushing you away, I'm not cold-shouldering you, I'm not putting you in a timeout. You can still stay here in the room, but I'm not gonna be the one who, in this space right now is entertaining you. That's just gonna be something you're gonna have to figure out on your own. And, by the way, at that moment, when you feel like your child's at a breaking point, where they're about to snap and they're about to Lose it and they're about to tear you apart because you just won't give them something to do, that's the moment, right before ingenuity, creativity.
Speaker 1:I was going through this my seven-year-old not long ago, probably a month ago and we're going through this and he's just like dad, I just can't come up with anything. I need you to do it for me. I need you to tell me what to do. And he's like crying and I'm sitting with him and I'm validating his experiences, but I'm not fixing it and I'm saying I know it's so hard to not know what to do and I get it and we just Win and we win. And it was like this moment of like just maybe I should just give him his iPad and Minecraft just to call him down. It's just like I just can't stay with this. I am emotionally just regulated. I'm losing it like I don't know if I can stay in this moment and hold this boundary any longer. I'm going to snap. Boom.
Speaker 1:He just got calm and he just went in the other room and he made a zoo out of all this stuffed animals and he put them all and he's like little places and he had like, well, these are the mythical animals, or these are this, and this is like Matt's mythical zoo and like we had to like do this Whole thing. And like he closed the door. He's like I don't want you in here, I want to figure this out for myself. And then when it was all done, you know, half an hour later, 45 minutes later, I was done doing whatever I had to do and I said hey, buddy, I can give you about five minutes. Do you want to show me? And he's like, yes, so I put my phone down, I walked into the room without it so I wouldn't be distracted, so I could be fully on his level. I walked, I kind of crouched down, I sat down, I think, on a chair so that I could be like on his level, and he's like going around the room showing me all this stuff.
Speaker 1:And he's like, yeah, it's just like I just came up with it all of a sudden, it just came to me and it's like right, because you actually have to push past that wall of somebody is gonna figure out what I should be doing right now. And once you, when you feel like you're right at that moment where you're gonna break, that's that you are. They are gonna break, but it's not a, it's not a battle of wills, it's it's them learning the next thing to do. So I'm not saying ignore your kids, not in any way right. Ignoring them Actually accomplishes the same goal. It just does so in a way that that sacrifices in the process your emotional connection and your attachment to your child, and so that's why I would say don't do it right. It's not that it doesn't work. It works like you can ignore your child and they'll come up, they'll also reach that breaking point and they'll push past it and they'll learn frustration, tolerance, but they'll learn it at the expense of your relationship instead of learning it inside of your relationship, and I think that that's much, much better. So, Robin, I hope that that kind of gives you some outline and structure.
Speaker 1:And then I want to get into two more questions here in the next like 10 or 15 minutes here and, and we will will go from there and, robin, keep listening, because I think some of this other stuff is also gonna help you as well. The next one comes from Eric, spelled with a C, like my brother, and he says he's a father to a five-year-old, danny, who exhibits attention seeking behavior, often interrupts conversations, acts out exaggerate stories to get attention from me and my partner. While we want to give him the love and attention he craves, we also want to set boundaries and teach him more effective ways to communicate any ideas. Eric, I do have ideas for you. I, and they come. Well, actually, you know what I'm gonna do. I have ideas from you, but I'm gonna do something that I've never done before and I'm gonna, after reading your question, go to my commercial break, because I think I have some of the best things to say about this and I want to hold over you that not you specifically, eric, but all of you listening that, this little commercial from me. All right, so here's my commercial to you, my loyal whole-parent listeners.
Speaker 1:We got a problem. We got a problem, and that problem is our listener rate. So our download rate on the podcast has just dropped precipitously in the last month. So when we started out the podcast, it was doing really, really well. We had so many downloads, so many people actively engaging and then all of a sudden it just fell off a cliff and I think that it's because a lot of people reviewed and rated right away. They did what I was saying and then a lot of people stopped doing that. Like there was just the people who were gonna do it did it, and then the people who were never gonna do it have not done it. If you're a person who was like I was never gonna do it, you could help me so much. It's such low hanging fruit right now to rate and review.
Speaker 1:But also, I think the other thing that we're running into is that we're not getting a lot of this stuff shared more broadly on social networks. So I can post videos of myself doing this podcast and yeah, some people listen to them and I do an email funnel and things like that. If you're listening to this because you got an email about it, hey, congrats, you're joining the whole parent podcast group, the group of people who is the whole parent podcast nation Is that what we call it here? And yeah, so that might be a way that you can do it. But also just the best way to do it is just to share it on your social media. So if you're a person who's like, yeah, you know what, I listen to a ton of parenting podcasts, or maybe I only listen to this one.
Speaker 1:I am just a local normal guy doing this. I just do this literally in my home office. It's like one of the bedrooms in my house, like my kids share a bedroom so that I can have this space for homeschool for my kid. That's all that stuff behind me and I record a podcast on this computer and so you know, I'm just a normal guy doing this and the best way that you can help me is like I don't have anybody promoting my stuff. Like I don't have some big brand who's putting out my stuff for me. I don't pay anybody. I don't pay for ads, nothing like that. Literally, I don't get paid to promote. You know, hellofresh or something like that. Like a lot of people are better help. I feel like everybody gets promoted by better help. I don't have any of that stuff. I just have you. You are my messenger, you're my brand evangelist, you're the one who's gonna help so many parents connect with the whole parent podcast nation.
Speaker 1:We're going with it and connect deeply and learn about parenting, learn about evidence-based parenting, have conversations about attention, seeing behaviors, actually get practical advice. Not just like navel gazing about the whims of childrearing, but actual practical advice. Hey, how can I help? And so, if this is helpful to you, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with other people or share it, you know, through a text message. Shoot it to somebody who's in a workout group with you. Shoot it to somebody who goes to you know some sort of social environment, whether that's a faith community or whatever. Share it with somebody who are there. Like, find a group of people you know, just your friends. Share it with your friends. Share it with your coworkers. Find somebody in your life who would benefit from this. Find just one person. And if every single person who listens to this podcast, send it to one other person, not just this episode, but any of the episodes, any episode that you feel like is good for somebody in your life. If every person did that, the viewership would double and then it would be able to pick up all of this traction and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:And so this is by far the most difficult thing that I do on Whole Parent, like compared to, like the videos that I put out or the membership like, this is the most challenging and the most time intensive, and so I can't keep doing it, if I keep, if the engagement keeps dropping. And so I just want to tell you like you can save it, like you can put this information out, you can go out and spread this to the world, and when you do that, not only does it help the world, it also helps me, right? It also helps me to know that this is the right type of thing to keep doing and keep producing. And so if you're listening and you're like, oh man, I haven't done that yet, I haven't read or reviewed it, I haven't sent it to somebody, just do it. Just do it. It'll take you 30 seconds.
Speaker 1:You know, think about how long it takes me to record these, and I don't get anything for this. I don't get paid for this, nothing. I just put these out. In fact, I pay to do this. I pay a podcast hosting service so that I can put these out and make them high quality for you, but I don't get. Yeah, I don't get nothing. I get nothing back except for knowing that I am helping people engage and change their parenting, and so if you can help me on that journey, I would be eternally grateful. So please do that and let's get back to the question from Eric. All right, eric.
Speaker 1:So here are my tips, right? The first one is to understand and acknowledge where attention seeking behavior comes from. So I'm gonna dive here a little bit into Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. I have a piece about this in my upcoming book, but one of the things that we fundamentally misunderstand is that a need for connection in kids and attention is a safety need, and this is kind of a radical perspective. Okay, I don't have a lot of data to back this up, so I always talk about trying to be evidence-based as much as I can. But I've brought this to several psychologists and psychiatrists and other people in the attachment world and I've said hey, here's my theory about kids and the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs. Kids are a little different than adults because their need for social connection is not a kind of social need as it is in adults. It's actually a safety need, and the response back that I've gotten is wow, john, that's actually a really interesting point and that very well could be the case.
Speaker 1:And so if you're unfamiliar with the pyramid or the Hierarchy of Needs, you start off with things like base needs for all people food, shelter, water, safety type needs, right. And then you move up the ranks and I should have had it in front of me. Actually, I'm gonna go get it right now. All right, I pulled up the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs because in the moment when I'm recording these podcasts, I can never remember exactly what it is. Okay, so starts off with what we call the physiological needs, which are these are the needs that are like food, water, warmth and rest right. So these are the parts of you when we talk about kids having their basic needs met, otherwise they'll act out Like food, water. If your kid's hungry like they're gonna act out, right, like that's just a part of life, by the way, if you're hungry, you're gonna act out. This is, these are everyone's kind of fundamental needs.
Speaker 1:Well, the next need on the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs, the second tier, so the second most basic need that all humans have is safety, and this is just am I safe? Right, and so this is why PTSD is a thing in people. Or, according to Abraham Maslow, this is why PTSD would be a thing which is. Ptsd is not knowing if you're safe in your own environment, and so, because of that reality, that we're not always safe right, and this is where, when you're in a violent domestic violence situation, when you are maybe in an area of the world that's experiencing either ecological crises like natural disasters or war torn parts of the world, your safety and security needs are not being met. When somebody breaks into your home all of a sudden, people have tremendous peace of mind loss because their security has been violated in some way, and so this is a really, really important thing.
Speaker 1:Next up is belonging and intimacy, friendships, social groups, et cetera, and then you get into what we call the higher needs, and the higher needs are esteem, respect. Am I respected, am I cared for? Not just like am I cared for socially in a group, but like do people think of me as a positive person in society? And then, finally, at the very, very top of the tier, is the one that people tend to focus on, which is self-actualization, and this is like do I feel fulfilled, do I feel like I'm you know, do I have good hobbies and stuff like that. And what we know from science, right From studies, longitudinal studies is that belonging and love needs for adults are massively important.
Speaker 1:They're massively important. They actually are a predictor of lifelong physical, mental and emotional health. People die much, much younger. It's actually more detrimental to your health. Don't hear me say that you should go out and, like drink a ton of smoke. But it's actually better for your health to drink and smoke in excess than it is to be excessively lonely. Right, this is like kind of radical things that we've learned about human psychology Loneliness is a killer of people and so, understanding this we are, we've highly prioritized these things, but we have never put them in the same category as safety.
Speaker 1:We would say like safety, though, like that's a real traumatic. You know, if you're lacking safety, you're gonna have all sorts of problems. It's not like loneliness, where over a long period of time, it's gonna affect you. No, in the immediate aftermath of feeling unsafe, you can have long term psychological harm. In fact, you can change the wiring of your brain. This is why, by the way, people who feel chronically unsafe they grow up in chronically unsafe homes, chronically unsafe communities. Their physical brain is different. Their amygdala is larger. The part of their brain that senses fear is larger and more active. They have more. They're more prone to anxiety and depression, other things like that, because of their physical brain, because their safety needs are violated.
Speaker 1:Well, my hypothesis is that basically in children, the belonging and love needs is typically where we put the parent-child relationship. It should actually be more like a safety need, because kids are so incredibly reliant on their primary caregivers for safety and security. Right, if you leave your child out in the cold and you know banning your child in the wilderness, you ban an adult in the wilderness. They'll probably be able to survive some days, you know, like maybe even weeks, maybe even months. Have you ever seen that movie cast away? I mean, it's a movie, but like you get the point right, Like you can have a movie that doesn't feel so phenomenal, where a person lives for years in isolation. Of course the person's not going to be healthy emotionally, physically, etc. But they could survive. Children cannot, right. This is just the case.
Speaker 1:The book Lord of the Flies kind of highlights the social breakdown of children who are abandoned on an island, but in reality so many more kids would just die of starvation and just not having their basic needs, but they're just not fundamentally able to cope, even at you know, five, six, seven, eight years old and obviously the kids in the Lord of the Flies are a little bit older than that but these safety needs, which again are psych, they're social needs, but they're also safety needs. This is where the attention seeking behavior comes from, because these kids, fundamentally, are really scared that like, if my primary caregiver abandons me, that I'm done, I'm gone, I'm like whatever, I'm just like toast. And so, because of this, we have to understand that these needs are inherently safety needs and so, as safety needs, we have to understand that the attention seeking behaviors are coming from a feeling of am I going to be abandoned, right? So? So when my caregiver is focusing their attention elsewhere, is this a sign that they're no longer connected to me? And so the best way to kind of cope and deal with this is to just continually affirm your child like, hey, I'm not going anywhere, there's nothing I could, you could, ever do, to make me love you any less.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, these attention seeking behaviors, where they do they act out and this goes for you too, robin where they act out and they do things that are like problematic to see how you'll respond yeah, they're testing the boundaries of your relationship. They're not just testing the boundaries of your patients, they're testing the boundaries of are you going to like, ignore me and abandon me, like if I'm not sure where my, when my, attention is coming, like. Is that a sign that you're slowly pulling back from me? And, by the way, they're in a developmental phase where they're fully, slowly pulling back from you and so, as they slowly pull back from you, they're afraid that you are there and going to slowly pull back from them. And so just constantly reaffirming and giving that attention that they crave in the, in the same way that I told you to do that with Robin, but but also surrounding that, wrapping that in this idea that, hey, there's nothing that you can ever do that's going to make me love you any less. That is going to be massively, massively, massively important for you in that process.
Speaker 1:When you're able to do that, when you're able to give that attention but also can speak to that need and validate that you're not going to be paying attention to that need anywhere, that their need for attention to be connected to you is a safety need. When you say, hey, I know it's scary when I'm not with you. I know that it's scary when I have to go to work. I know that it's scary when I'm not paying attention to you, or I know that it's not fun feeling when you validate those things you actually and this is why ignoring is not a good thing and ultimately ignore if certain kids, if you ignore them, they'll just get more and more reckless with their behavior until you finally pay attention. And, by the way, this is like that old trope in TV and movies where, like the person who has a father figure who's absent, like just you know, behaves increasingly with risk, risky behaviors. Right, this is why that is the case, that's why that trope kind of like speaks to an innate sense of us and are to our human sensibilities, is because we go, yeah, that that feels realistic.
Speaker 1:If you had an absent parent, a parent who just did, seemingly did not care about you and did not give you their attention, you would go seeking that attention from someone else to get that safety need met. So, understanding that and trying to work within that system and say, no, I'm going to be here, I'm not going anywhere, I'm not going to abandon you, no matter what happens, I'm never going to abandon you. These are the things that you can say. And this, by the way, is why Fred Rogers, when there was a, very famously before he started Mr Rogers neighborhood, there was a falling out between him and a cohost of another show that was very similar to Mr Rogers neighborhood the first time he ever used Daniel Tiger and his puppets and he had a cohost on that show, a woman, and she was really interested in media of all kinds, including comedy, and so she did some comedy work where some of the jokes were around like abandoning your kids and like just totally ignoring your kids, and she thought of this as like this is no big deal, this is targeted at adults, it's not targeted at kids, like they're not even going to see it. And Fred went off the rails because he said this is the greatest fear of all children is that they are going to be abandoned by their primary caregiver. And it basically eroded their relationship and ended that relationship over time because he could not get over the fact that she did not understand how toxic it was to tell children that they could potentially be abandoned. And so if you, eric, as you, give that attention that he craves, the key is to give that targeted attention and then, when you're not giving it, make sure it's very clear it's not like there's nothing you could ever do. That's going to make me love you any less. And this attention I understand that you want to be near me and I'm not going anywhere that can be massively, massively helpful. And you will see instantly a lot of those behaviors that seem to be boundary testing and testing the relationship just dissolve. So let's get on to our last question.
Speaker 1:Question number three comes from Bridget, and Bridget has a two year old and she says I'm seeking advice on how to manage my two year old son's behavior. He often resorts to whining, tantrums and disruptive behavior to get my attention, especially when I'm busy on the phone or with other tasks. When he needs my help, I try and respond as quickly as I can, but sometimes it takes a second and he immediately launches into full on rage mode. I'm starting to feel like I am a slave to his outbursts. Any advice would be much appreciated. You know, bridget, this is a really another really common and challenging thing and it comes again from from unmet needs. But in this case I actually don't think that the unmet need is necessarily attention, as we've been talking about right with targeted, specialized attention or specific attention.
Speaker 1:Sometimes also kids get our attention in order for us to meet other needs and one of the most common things is that a kid doesn't realize their needs when they're actively engaged in something. But then all of a sudden, as soon as you're on the phone or as soon as you're trying to talk to a friend or whatever, they'll all of a sudden realize I'm hungry, I'm tired, I'm this and that, and then all of a sudden they seem like they just need you, all you know, in that moment, and if they don't have you in that moment it's going to be impossible. And this is kind of that frustration tolerance thing coming to bear where, at a two years old, it's really hard to navigate frustration tolerance. And so the short answer to this is let your kid grow up, which I know is not an answer that most people like to hear, because they want to figure out a short term solution right now. How can I fix this right now? But the answer really is you have to let your kid grow to the extent where they can start to manage that. And so, really simple thing to do Try and make sure your children's basic needs I like to use the acronym HALT.
Speaker 1:It's something that's been available and you know widely spread out around parenting circles hungry, angry, lonely and tired. So if your kids are one of those things. It's going to be hard for them that they've those basic needs are not being met, those lower Maslow needs are not being met. They're going to look to you to help them with those things. And so one of the things you can do is hey, if you're going to be out and on the phone or something like that, just have a snack ready. I know that that sounds, you know, overly simplistic, but just have a snack ready, have some stuff around your house. You know, hey, if I got to pick up the phone, if I have to go respond to something urgently. This is especially true if you have multiple kids. You know we talked about sibling problems, I think, on the last episode or maybe the episode before that, and our sibling problems are new baby. That was one of our earlier episodes.
Speaker 1:This happens a lot. Your attention gets pulled to that other child, the child who was actively engaged with you all of a sudden isn't, and they seemingly need your help with something immediately because they all of a sudden are aware of a need that they had as soon as there's space for them to be aware of it. A really clear example of this, by the way, is kids when they're on devices. So this again I've kind of been talking a lot about neurodivergence, but a lot of neurodivergent kids. This is a really extreme issue.
Speaker 1:But any kid, they get so engrossed in their environment of whether it's playing a game or watching a show or watching YouTube or whatever. They get so engrossed that they don't realize that they're starving. They get so engrossed they realize that they're tired or that they need to move or that they need to use the bathroom, and then they wind up having an accident. Or when you take it off, take time for the screen to go away, they have a complete meltdown because they aren't having their basic needs met. So just having a little snack beside you and being aware of that kind of keeping track of your kid's habits in those ways, knowing that, hey, as soon as I get on the phone, if they have a basic need that's not been met, they're going to let me hear it.
Speaker 1:So, understanding that and trying to embrace that, to try and build in the systems around you for that to be the case where you have those basic needs being met, that can be super helpful and it's just also another way to distract them away from the fact that you're not consciously paying attention to you. Again, they're just lobbying for your attention in those moments because they know that you are the one who can fix the problem that they have. And so letting them grow up which I know is terrible advice it's like why would you even send in this question, thinking that that's how I'm going to respond? But really that is how I'm going to respond. And another piece of this, too, is everything that I said to Robin and Eric also applies here, which is that hey, if you're not giving that targeted attention, then maybe the basic need that's not being met is that they are truly just lonely, that they just want you around, and when you're on the phone that comes to bear, they notice it. But if you feel like you're giving your kid targeted attention and things like that, then the question is okay, what's the next need? Right, are they hungry? It might just be that I have a huge section in my book where I realized that I have this analogy that I use from my own parenting experience, where I'm talking about I didn't know what was wrong with my middle child.
Speaker 1:It just seemed like every single day he was having a meltdown. I couldn't figure it out. Is this developmental? Like what's going on and it turned out that he was just super, super hungry and he just was so engaged with what we were doing in the mornings he wasn't realizing it and then, when it was time to leave, he slowed down enough to realize I'm super hungry and then he had a huge, complete meltdown. So that's the. That's the, you know, kind of embrace the suck.
Speaker 1:This is not a forever thing. You can set timers and things like that. They're not always helpful for two year olds, three year olds. Sometimes they can be helpful to have a visual aid of how much time they have to wait until you're off the phone. It can also be helpful for you as a parent to go hey, I'm going to cut this conversation off. I can't ever seem to get off the phone when I'm. You know you guys can tell I like to talk, otherwise why would I do a podcast? But but you know it's hard for me to get off the phone and so I. Those timers can be helpful to me as well. So embrace this period.
Speaker 1:It is a difficult period of development related to attention, but don't look at this as a negative thing, you know. That's all I'll say. Is, as you, embrace the suck of having a two year old, three year old, who just needs your constant attention in some ways, or seems to demand your constant attention. You feel like I'm just trapped by this person. It's so much more tolerable when you appreciate that this is a stage of development and this won't always be this way. This is kind of what we talked about in the newborn sleep episode, or in the sleep episode, I should say, where we talked about newborn sleep with Dr Kinsagra and he was like you know, one of the most helpful things to parents about newborn sleep is not actually anything related to the newborn, it's related to the expectations of the caregiver that it's not a forever thing, that it's a couple months, and that's my kind of call to you.
Speaker 1:This is a thing that right now, and it is going to be challenging, and it does feel like your two year old constantly wants your attention. And you're not alone. I am with you. I have a two year old. He does that too, right, he acts that way. It tends to be older kids act that way even more than younger siblings, because younger siblings are a little bit more willing to wait for things, because they've had to wait for things, but all two year olds do this to an extent. So you're not doing anything wrong, you're not a bad parent. This is just a stage, it's not forever, but they do need that attention, they need your help. And so finding ways to just kind of build in systems so that you can give them the quick wins and you can meet those there's needs.
Speaker 1:Remember, all behavior is just communication. So if your kid is doing something problematic, they're trying to communicate something to you. They're trying to communicate that they have a need that's going unmet. This is true for all of our questions today. When kids act kind of negatively will say or they do things that they know we're going to get our attention. Even if it's not positive attention, it's because they need it. They need our attention in those moments. And so this goes for all of the questions today. But remember that in attention is not some sort of negative character trait.
Speaker 1:Attention seeking behaviors not a negative character trait of your kids. It is a developmental, normal stage for them. And because being attention seeking is a normal stage, we have to embrace and build scaffolding and build frustration, tolerance and do targeted attention and all these other things that can help support our children through that stage. But it is just a stage and it will go away. And there will be a day someday in the future, to each and every one of you where you cannot imagine why your 14 year old does not want your attention anymore. Your 16 year old seemingly doesn't want your attention. They want nothing to do with you, and so you know. I don't mean to try and scare anyone, but when that day comes, you want to have given your child as much attention targeted good attention, not half attention, not not on my phone but I'm giving you attention. Not I'm scrolling, but I'm giving you attention. Not I'm responding to this email, but I'm giving you attention, the full attention. When your child gets to an age where you're not going to have to give them that anymore, you're not going to regret having given it to them when they're younger. Just remember that, embrace that and be a whole parent in that way. Give them everything that you can, because you only have them for a short period of time when they're this little guys. That's our episode today all about attention seeking behaviors, how to manage them, how we can navigate attention seeking in kids, why kids attention seek, all of that stuff.
Speaker 1:If this episode has been helpful to you, what I said at the mid roll still applies right now. Please share it with somebody in your life. That's the only way that this gets spread. A lot of people think, john, you have a million followers across social media. You must have 100,000 people at least downloading these episodes of the podcast. It's not true. There are very, very few people as a percentage of my following who download the podcast, and that is not any sort of indictment against the podcast. That's just the nature of moving people from one platform to another. It takes time, it doesn't happen immediately, and so you can be so, so helpful by sharing this with people in your life.
Speaker 1:Not because I am looking for numbers or I'm looking for likes or clicks or this or that or I'm trying to make. No matter how many people listen, I don't get paid. It's not like it's not like there's any incentive to me. I truly want the most people to benefit from this and so many of you have written reviews, emailed me podcast. If you have a question, I should say that podcast at wholeparentacademycom is the place to submit your questions for the podcast that I can answer here on the podcast. But as people have written me emails and replies and says this is so beneficial.
Speaker 1:I love this podcast. I'm so engaged. I can't wait for it to come out every Tuesday and Thursday. That's great. Don't keep it to yourself. Share it with your friends, share it with people in your life. There's no greater compliment than taking my stuff, putting it up on your social feed, shooting it in a text to somebody who is a parent in your life. That is the best, most effective way that you can spread this message person to person. We love personal recommendations. So, yeah, do it and I'll see you next time on the whole parent podcast.
