<story><title>How to get kids to pay attention</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/21/621752789/a-lost-secret-how-to-get-kids-to-pay-attention</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jinfiesto</author><text>I often wonder whether this has a lot to do with how we treat our kids. I often catch myself acting uninterested in my daughter&amp;#x27;s interests (she&amp;#x27;s two and often wants to show me things for the 50th time that were pretty boring in the first place.) She doesn&amp;#x27;t have any attention or behavioral issues in general, but I was amazed when a friend of mine came to visit who is an early music educator. They didn&amp;#x27;t do anything music related, but watching her interact with my daughter was eye-opening. She was very present and respectful with regards to my daughter&amp;#x27;s interests and what my daughter wanted to do. I guess more or less she treated my daughter more or less like an adult. Thinking about it, it&amp;#x27;s so easy to be flippant or dismissive about what our kids are doing or are interested in without even noticing.&lt;p&gt;I was really amazed to see how much my daughter reciprocated the attention and my friend was able to get her to pay attention to this or that or be much more engaged than I usually can.&lt;p&gt;This is obviously a very small sample, but it really made me think about the ways that we don&amp;#x27;t treat our children like adults (and how maybe they act like children because we treat them that way.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dalbasal</author><text>An indirect way of encouraging this is including kids in what &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt; are doing, as opposed to engineering activities for them.&lt;p&gt;A lot of kids&amp;#x27; world these days is an artificial reality, made for them. School, soccer, art class, play dates. The reason the activity exists is to give kids an experience. We&amp;#x27;re not interested in it, because it&amp;#x27;s kid stuff.&lt;p&gt;When I was a kid, some of the most formative activities were fishing, sheep farming &amp;amp; vegetables gardening (grandparents on a farm),  home repair jobs like painting or brickwork.&lt;p&gt;When I was very small (2-4), if my parents were painting a room, I was also in old clothes with a paintbrush &amp;quot;helping&amp;quot;. Same with spring cleaning or whatnot. I had a little hammer I could bang, to help my dad assemble IKEA furniture.&lt;p&gt;You don&amp;#x27;t have to conciously &amp;quot;engage&amp;quot; in their stuff, just let them engage in your stuff.</text></comment>
<story><title>How to get kids to pay attention</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/21/621752789/a-lost-secret-how-to-get-kids-to-pay-attention</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jinfiesto</author><text>I often wonder whether this has a lot to do with how we treat our kids. I often catch myself acting uninterested in my daughter&amp;#x27;s interests (she&amp;#x27;s two and often wants to show me things for the 50th time that were pretty boring in the first place.) She doesn&amp;#x27;t have any attention or behavioral issues in general, but I was amazed when a friend of mine came to visit who is an early music educator. They didn&amp;#x27;t do anything music related, but watching her interact with my daughter was eye-opening. She was very present and respectful with regards to my daughter&amp;#x27;s interests and what my daughter wanted to do. I guess more or less she treated my daughter more or less like an adult. Thinking about it, it&amp;#x27;s so easy to be flippant or dismissive about what our kids are doing or are interested in without even noticing.&lt;p&gt;I was really amazed to see how much my daughter reciprocated the attention and my friend was able to get her to pay attention to this or that or be much more engaged than I usually can.&lt;p&gt;This is obviously a very small sample, but it really made me think about the ways that we don&amp;#x27;t treat our children like adults (and how maybe they act like children because we treat them that way.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>icc97</author><text>&amp;gt; I often catch myself acting uninterested in my daughter&amp;#x27;s interests&lt;p&gt;I read a book that talk about how to improve on this [0], when ever my 5yo daughter shows me some of her drawings I try to take notice of some detail and comment on it, not just say &amp;#x27;that&amp;#x27;s nice dear&amp;#x27;. She draws masses and masses of pictures of stick girls in dresses, but I always try to find some detail that she&amp;#x27;s done different.&lt;p&gt;We often draw or paint together, maybe once or twice a week. The last time we did it, I painted a picture of a boat on the sea, she painted a space portal that takes you to another world.&lt;p&gt;[0]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.goodreads.com&amp;#x2F;book&amp;#x2F;show&amp;#x2F;769016.How_to_Talk_So_Kids_Will_Listen_Listen_So_Kids_Will_Talk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.goodreads.com&amp;#x2F;book&amp;#x2F;show&amp;#x2F;769016.How_to_Talk_So_Ki...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>