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Children With ADHD Crave Attention
By Rory Stern | February 1, 2009
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Most of us understand ADHD as a condition where children are lacking in attention, or where they struggle to maintain focus, concentration and ATTENTION.
But I think we often overlook another form of attention…
When I speak with parents, I often hear the frustration coupled with parenting children with ADHD. And you know I don’t mean that in a rude…condesending way! At least I hope you know that! After all, above all else, I am a parent first. I am NOT immune to finding myself frustrated and burnt out from giving all of my attention to two young children.
Now it’s really easy to lose patience with our children, and forget how fragile our children really are… To overlook what they really want from us…
ATTENTION!!!
This is the attention that I think often gets overlooked when we are parenting children with ADHD and even those children without learning differences (without ADHD).
We immediately think attention, and everyone in the ADHD community starts thinking about the child’s attention span – what they can focus on… But what if it’s NOT really that? What if it is that these children just CRAVE attention?
Our children will do ANYTHING for attention…even if it is negative attention (like yelling, screaming, shouting, punishing…)
Just imagine that your child is dancing on the inside because you are finally <in their minds> giving them your full attention.
I know it doesn’t always make sense!
Just keep in mind one thing — our children do not have the same words or vocabulary, or the “know-how” to communicate that they want attention. Instead, they have learned that their behavior (i.e., acting out) is what catches our attention.
Again – it’s the delicate balance between positive attention, negative attention, and just plain old being a kid and a parent in this messed up, busy world!
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Topics: Parenting | 1 Comment »
February 24th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Interesting you should discuss this. It was the very fact of my increasing difficulty in being with (attention) my child that pressed me toward medication treatment for her.
Impulsively, she would whack me in the leg, the back, whatever body part was nearest, every time I passed by her. Not enough to hurt, not motivated by anger, she just did it. A moving target asking for contact, I suppose.
She knew I didn’t like it, she was immediately sorry, then even embarrassed, for she truly was unhable to stop herself soon enough, in that infinitesimal space of time between the impulse and the deed.
I found myself giving her a wide berth around the house. It was increasingly hard to have a reasonable go at reading before bedtime, something she had always loved, still did, but moved around way too much to make it work.
There were many such things — the things parents and children do all the time which engender closeness, understanding, security, etcetera.
I was pretty sure what she “had,” and felt it was only a matter of time before her own agonies would be more important as cues for treatment than those of other people (teachers, etc.).
In fact, my exasperation and hers coincided in time and we did the conservative, medical thing. Ten years have passed, and no one is sorry for that. Sorry it is necessary, but grateful such treatment is possible in this day and age.