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The family is out to dinner and there is an animated discussion going on between fourteen-year-old Sam and his parents. Suddenly, six-year-old Emily crawls under the table and starts banging. Mom and Dad are horrified. Emily's behavior seems to be getting worse and worse every day.
These distraught parents came to see me at my office for help, fearing that their daughter had a serious problem. It became clear to me during our discussion that Emily’s behavior was a response to a family issue. Mom and Dad were extremely focused on their older child’s choice of a high school. It was clearly a big decision, and they were constantly strategizing about how to help their child get into the best school possible. While these seemingly endless discussions were going on, Emily sat there feeling invisible and unloved. To her it felt like her brother was taking up all the air in the room. She crawled under the table hoping someone would notice her missing. She badly wanted attention!
The developmental issue motivating Emiiy’s behavior is the need for love, the most important need that children have. This urgent need was causing Emily to try to solve her problem through negative attention-seeking behavior.
Infants need love to survive. Early twentieth century studies by Rene Spitz addressed the fact that infant mortality rates were high in orphanages. He concluded that this happened because babies were separated from their primary caretakers and did not have the maternal love or attention they needed.
An important study, (The Still Face Experiment), conducted by Dr. Edward Tronick at Havard in 1970, also illustrated the importance of this need: A mother sits opposite her one year old pleasantly interacting. The mother and baby smile at each other, the baby points to things in the environment and the mother pays attention and talks to her about them. After a while, the mother is told by the examiner to stop interacting with her child and to sit with a blank expression.The baby quickly becomes agitated, kicks her feet, keeps pointing at things and not getting a response, and finally waves her hands wildly in her mother’s face. She does anything she can to get her mother’s attention. When the infant senses she has failed in her attempts to get her mother’s attention, she begins to screech and shows signs of depression. After two minutes the mother gets the signal to resume interacting again with her child. All returns to normal.
If we relate these insights to our anecdote, it's clear that Emily went under the table because she was suffering from a lack of attention. Young children don't have the words to express their feelings so they take an action. As usual, the attempt to get love and affection through a negative action failed
Emily’s parents got very angry and yelled at her and she felt even less loved. However, from Emily’s point of view this pattern of behavior would most likely continue--to a child, negative attention feels better than none.
Here are some steps these parents could have taken to handle the situation more effectively:
Make a connection: These parents needed to view Emily's behavior as a reaction to something that was going on. If they realized that she was feeling left out, they would have been better equipped to respond.
Acknowledge the developmental issue. Mom and Dad needed to explain to Emily, “We think you went under the table because you wanted our attention.” This would help Emily to understand her behavior and begin to build self-control.
Set a positive limit. Instructing Emily, “If you want more attention you cannot crawl under a table. We won’t be able to understand you, so it will be hard to help you,” This was very important to communicate because it would give her the message that taking an action is not the way to express herself.”
Encourage her to verbalize her feelings. “Tell her, “When you need our help you need to use words.” However, since young children do not have the language skills to tell you what they are feeling, you need to give her some positive phrases to use. For instance, you might suggest, “When you need attention, you can tell us, 'I need attention' or ‘I feel left out’ and we will help you.”
Self-observation is very important for parents. Make sure that you are giving enough attention to all of your children. One child can easily absorb the focus of the family because of a new experience or a problem. This leaves the other children feeling less loved, unimportant, and angry. To a child time equals attention equals love.
As I worked with Emily’s parents they began to visibly relax. Understanding the reasons for their child’s behavior-- that she was normal and just being a child-- and having the tools to work with her in a positive way, made them calmer, and more self-confident. I have found in my work that these two ingredients are essential in parenting positively and raising children to feel loved.
