If a child doesn’t get the positive attention he desires, it is not uncommon at all for a child to behave badly to get attention. Somewhere inside a child is the understanding that attention means they have importance, and if the things they do well do not get them the attention they desire, maybe bad things will be important enough to get their parent’s attention. Very often, children master the art of attracting negative attention.
When we grow beyond childhood, we sometimes feel invisible. We become part of a nameless, faceless sea of strangers moving through the world. Some people call it being invisible. Those who think they do not desire attention often believe they don’t want attention because they may have been ridiculed in the past or have a fear of being ridiculed. They would rather be invisible than be ridiculed, so they think they do not want attention. Sometimes people feel they do not want attention because they feel insecure and think that attention will uncover their inadequacy.
However, very few people actually have no desire for positive, loving, affirming attention. If someone notices them, something about their character, skills, or even appearance that they like and makes a genuine compliment - not one packed with ulterior motives, but a genuine “I’m telling you this for you” compliment - very few people dislike that. Naturally, the compliment must be appropriate, and it should be true. False compliments might sound sweet when spoken, but if the recipient knows it isn’t true, we call it false flattery. We know they don’t mean it, they’re just saying it.
Even as adults, attention still means that we are important enough for someone to pay atteniton. Unfortunately, because negative conduct is about four times more powerful than positive conduct, we often fear that our mistakes and inadequacies will be what draws the attention of others. Walk into a restaurant with confidence and grace and the only people likely to notice are those waiting for your arrival. Walk into the same restaurant and fall flat on your face knocking over a waiter with a tray of food, and everyone will be paying attention.
By paying attention to someone, we show them that they are important. Providing attention to a child, a spouse, or even a stranger shows that they are important enough for you to focus on them and ignore the many other things you could be doing, saying or watching at that moment. The more someone perceives that your attention is all about them, not about something you want from them, the more flattered they will be that you think they are important.
Even if attention isn’t available at that moment, promising it shortly and delivering on that promise can fulfill this need very effectively. The other person might be interrupting our work, or a train of thought, or taking our mind from a problem we’re trying to solve. We might be on the phone or having a conversation. For many men, myself in particular, being interrupted while we’re working, even for a minute, can cost us fifteen or twenty minutes of productivity as they change mental and emotional channels out from work, and then try to get back in the groove when we change channels back. There have been times I was working, and even a thirty second interruption has lead to losing a train of thought. I have returned to my writing with no idea where I was going with the thought I had barely begun to put on paper.
If I tell my wife that I will wrap up what I’m doing shortly and then I’d like to spend some time with her, she finds that she can wait patiently for it. Husbands who come home from work often need about 20 minutes before their heart gets home, too. If, rather than ignore his wife’s need to talk altogether, he lovingly told her “Honey, I’d love to listen to your day, but I need about twenty minutes to get my head out of work so I can really pay attention to you. Can we talk at six?” Then, come six o’clock, he should follow through and sit and really listen to her talk about her day.
By paying attention to her, she will know that she is important. By listening to her day and how she feels about it, it tells her that her day is important and her feelings are important. By listening without trying to offer solutions to any problems or upsets she has, he validates her feelings and lets her know that how she feels is important. Minimizing her problems, invalidating her feelings, and, to a lesser degree, offering solutions - while loving gestures by men - often make her feel that we weren’t really paying attention to her, only looking for an opportunity to insert something of our own.
Truly paying attention to someone means we focus on them. We don’t idly flip through a magazine or mute the television during the commercials when we’re having a serious discussion or listening to someone. That level of attention is what we offer when the information being conveyed is merely factual. When the discussion is meaningful, the magazine goes down, the television goes off, the eyes focus on the other person and we lean forward to listen intently. This behavior conveys the importance of the other person and what is being said.