So, I now have an almost 2 year old, little naughty, mostly well-behaved child at hand, who sometimes tends to rub me the wrong way. This led to me searching on the internet for techniques to bring some order in the house. When I say order, I know people are jumping in their seats cursing me for trying to control a toddler.
Keeping that apart, one topic that caught my attention was about love or attention withdrawal technique. Let me explain – so as a parent you shower all the love and attention on the child, and when the child misbehaves, you withdraw your love or attention until you make them realize what their mistakes were. Now, I had a couple of thoughts with respect to this technique.
As parents, we can never stop loving our kids, we love them – period! But, it does get challenging when they don’t quite want to behave in a socially acceptable manner. I want to think about this technique for each age group –
- Infants and Toddlers – Seriously!! My toddler cannot differentiate an A from a Z and I expect her to know why I am withdrawing attention from her? This age group is totally not correct for practicing this technique.
- Toddlers to preteens – Many parents hate toddler age. Hate is too harsh a word, but what I mean is they would trade that period for this age group. But, for me, I feel this is the toughest age group. They are full of curiosity related to their bodies, minds, social behaviors, and more. And hence, I again feel that it is not a suitable group to practice this technique with.
- Preteens to teens – Rebel period. So if I withdraw my love from them, I guess they will be the happiest teen on the planet to have a parent off their back for once.
So, it seems that for every stage this technique is a no-no. Yes, though I mentioned it age group wise, I really do believe that this technique will not work. Let us take an example. My toddler bites another toddler in her playgroup right when I am watching her. I shout at her, tell her what is wrong and then suddenly stop looking at her or give her mean looks.
Now, she knows I am not looking at her, so she tries whining, shouting, kicking things till I start noticing and picking her up. What I did here was triggered a much horrific reaction to something that I could have simply explained. Many of you might disagree to this technique since it might not work on some errant toddlers. In such cases, time outs can really be a savior.
But, timeouts simply mean quite time. They can still expect me to be calm and quiet, but definitely not resentful towards them. I am yet to try it on my toddler, but I hope she never misbehaves to that level ever.
Whatever parenting style you choose, kids need reinforcement about your love constantly. More you show it in simple gestures, more secure your child will be. What are your thoughts about the attention withdrawal technique?
