What Is Positive Attention?
Children are in a growth stage where they need a great deal of attention, especially from adults. For this reason, they sometimes resort to bad behavior to attract attention, even if it ends up being negative. As a result, it is necessary to use positive attention with children, not only in order to reduce excessive attention seeking behaviors, but also to facilitate healthy personal development in them.
Positive attention and negative attention: what do they consist of?
The fact praise and congratulate a child after a good performance, showing interest in their achievements, using affectionate expressions and encourage him and encourage him in his tasks are some examples of what it means to use positive attention.
Through these types of actions and experiences, we are indicating to the child that we care, which makes him feel valued, one of his main needs from birth. On the other hand, if we don’t stop to value them and celebrate their achievements, that is, pay attention to them in a positive way, children will look for other ways to get our attention.
In view of this, if children are not able to meet this basic need in a positive way, they discover a way in which they will capture the attention of adults yes or yes: using bad behavior. In this way, if we yell and lecture children, we are using what is called negative attention.
Although the ideal is to offer children positive attention most of the time, as referenced by the early childhood education specialist Gloria G. Rodríguez, sometimes it is very difficult not to fall into the trap of reinforcing and rewarding bad behavior, such as For example, when we only react if children show bad behavior.
How to use positive attention?
Undoubtedly, positive attention is a main motivator of behavior in children, and the key is to pay positive attention when they show good behavior and withdraw it in the case of inappropriate, although harmless behavior.
According to the Rutgers University psychology professor Maurice J. Elias and psychologists Steven E. Tobias and Brian S. Friedlander, adults should try to reduce the amount of negative attention we offer to children, since it tends to increase conflicts in the home while decreasing self-esteem.
Thus, we have to teach the child specific behaviors that he can identify as ways to get positive attention. That is, the important thing is that the child knows that what we are praising is his good behavior, so we must be very clear.
¿Why is it so important?
Elias, Tobias, and Friedlander assume that the more negative attention children receive, the more insecure they will become. Therefore, this will lead them to try to attract even more attention, which can become a problem because negative attention is less satisfying than positive attention.
However, the most important effect of using positive attention in children is the development of healthy self-concept and self-esteem. Through positive attention, we get children to build a healthy self-image, that is, they value themselves positively, at the same time that they feel more security and confidence in themselves.
