As your bundle of joy arrives in this world, the first thing she gets is lots of love and attention. You as parents can’t stay away, the family gushes over her, and your friends are overwhelmed with the new arrival. After all love and attention is like sunlight for a growing child. Babies seek attention and we are more than willing to give them that. Does this need-to-seek attention decreases as they grow older? Yes it does. As the child grows and becomes a little bit more independent the need for attention reduces a lot, but can they do with no attention? Absolutely not!

Often you would see kids misbehaving and throwing a tantrum. Parents often respond by pleading the kids to stop their misbehavior at first. Some use bribing as an option, “If you stop acting like this I will get you an ice-cream!”. Sometimes parents respond by getting angry. What should you do if you were in such a situation? Trust me, none of the bribing or getting-angry works. Pleading makes the child think that the parents are weak. Bribing encourages bad behavior because the next time they want an ice-cream they will just behave badly.

But wait, why do they throw a tantrum or misbehave in the first place?

It is simple, they are seeking for your attention.

If your child is acting up lately just pause and think if she is getting enough attention from you. You don’t have to spend hours together, just a few minutes of special time every once in a while will pacify and calm your child.

And here is another way you can tackle the attention seeking kid. Praise her for her good behavior and ignore the bad behavior. That will make the child behave better because she would know that mom gives attention when she is better behaved.

Now moving beyond: you might  have also had times when your well-behaved kid starts to talk back to you, or does things just to shock you. You have to immediately find the root cause of what is bothering your child. Trouble at school, difficulty coping up with friends in the park or any other issue she might be having and is unable to express because may be you are hard to reach or she is just becoming shy. You need to be there for the kid. When she talks to you be there, even when she does not want to, just be there. Assure her that whatever it is you can solve it together.

Did you have other situations that you can share, which you think you could solve just by listening more and giving more attention to the kid – we would love to hear from you.