Parenting Tip: Ignoring

Children often engage in attention-seeking, nuisance behaviors, such as interrupting, nagging, whining, and pouting. At Glenholme, we teach parents that many conflicts can be avoided or minimized by ignoring these nuisance behaviors.  Ignoring means removing all attention - no eye contact, talking or making noises, reacting with physical gestures, or touching. Instead, only give attention when your child demonstrates behaviors that you want to see.

A test to see if a behavior should be ignored: Have you already discussed this behavior with your child in the past?  If you have, and your child continues to demonstrate the behavior, he or she may be doing it just for your attention or reaction.

It is important to note that anytime you begin to ignore a behavior that has historically gained your attention, you can expect a temporary escalation in that behavior (known as an extinction burst). As your child attempts to gain your attention through previously reliable means, his or her behavior may get louder or more intense (for example, whining may become yelling). However, giving your child attention while he or she is engaging in this escalated behavior will only result in your child beginning his or her nusiance behaviors at that heightened level the next time… so walk away and keep ignoring! If it is consistently ignored, your child's nuisance behavior will eventually diminish.

This seemingly simple technique can be difficult to pull off, and can result in frustration (both for the child and the parent). Sometimes it’s useful to act as though something else is keenly interesting to you, such as a piece of mail or a book/magazine, to give yourself something to focus on instead of your child’s behavior. In order to ignore in the midst of the extinction burst, you may even need to remove yourself entirely from the situation - the ultimate step in the ignoring technique.

Ignoring attention-seeking behaviors takes a lot of practice. What challenges have you faced while trying to ignore your child's nuisance behaviors? What strategies have you found helpful? Whether you’ve already mastered ignoring, are currently struggling with escalating behaviors, or are just beginning to explore this technique, we’d love to hear your thoughts!