6) He tries to engage you in a conversation about his behaviors (e.g., "Did I lose a point when I pushed the dog?", or, "Remember when I had a tantrum?").

The primary function of attention seeking-behaviors is to get attention and reactions; however, there can be a secondary function for these behaviors. Engaging in attention-seeking behaviors may serve to help the child avoid non-preferred activities or demands. For example, if your child wants to avoid bath time, he may engage in an attention-seeking behavior because he knows it will result in a "talk" or timeout, which delays bath time even longer. Alleviating boredom may also be a motivation for attention-seeking behaviors. It is very important to determine the function of any behavior before implementing a strategy to reduce it.

There are a variety of antecedent-control and consequence-control strategies that can effectively decrease attention-seeking behaviors. The key is to choose strategies that provide minimal or no attention to the behavior itself. Any attention given to the behavior will reinforce it and increase the likelihood that your child will engage in that behavior in the future.

Antecedent-control strategies are very useful because they focus on changing the child's environment before the behavior occurs and do not provide any attention to the behavior itself. Conditioned reinforcement systems are very useful. Conditioned reinforcement systems provide positive consequences contingent upon a child's behavior and are classified as a consequence-control strategy; however, setting up this type of system, and priming your child about ways to earn a reinforcer are useful antecedent-control strategies. If your child is earning a valued reward for good behavior, and you regularly remind him of what he is earning, the motivation to earn the reinforcer may keep him from engaging in attention-seeking behaviors. These systems can also be useful for decreasing attention-seeking behaviors in classroom setting. (See our August, 2008 article How to Use a Conditioned Reinforcsement System for more information.) If you can predict when your child may engage in attention-seeking behaviors, you can engage him in activities that will prevent him from doing these behaviors. For example, if he usually acts up at the grocery store, he may be looking for attentino because he's bored. Giving him small manageable tasks to complete (e.g., finding the strawberry jam), will keep him from getting bored and acting out.

Consequence-control strategies are also useful for decreasing attention-seeking behaviors; however, it is important to choose a consequence that will not give attention to the behavior. Typically, the most effective consequence for an attention-seeking behavior is ignoring the behavior. For behaviors such as being inappropriately silly, loud or some mild inappropriate language (e.g., potty talk), actively ignoring the behavior can be the very best consequence. Active ignoring is also called extinction. Be aware that when you try to extinguish a behavior, the behavior often increases in frequency and intensity before it decreases. This temporary increase is called an extinction burst. Extinction bursts occur because your child has been accustomed to getting a reaction for certain behaviors. When you take away the reaction, he will engage in the behavior more frequently or with more intensity in an attempt to get a reaction again. Before you decide to actively ignore a behavior, you should decide if you can withstand the extinction burst. If you anticipate difficulty doing this, you can choose another consequence. If you can withstand the extinction burst, however, the behavior will begin to decrease over time. When possible, you can also teach siblings to ignore behaviors as well.

Of course, there are many situations when ignoring the behavior is not appropriate. Dangerous, aggressive, self-njurious, and disruptive behaviors would all constitute situations in which you would not want to ignore the behavior. Response cost can be a very useful tool for these types of behaviors. Response cost is when you take away a preferred activity or object contingent upon an undesirable behavior. For example, when your child engages in a mild attention-seeking behavior (e.g., loud singing), you can take away a preferred toy. Without addressing the singing, you can calmly, and with few words, tell the child that he's lost the toy. Additionally, timeouts can be used (with caution). You should not use timeout if it requires significant interaction to get your child into, or keep him in, timeout. This interaction may be the attention that he was trying to get. Remember, negative attention, such as yelling, is still attention. Also, timeout should not be used if your child was trying to avoid a non-preferred activity. (See our May, 2008 article Time to Learn More About Timeouts! for more information.) Positive punishers, such as contingent work, can also be used with caution. Often contingent work requires significant interaction between parent and child to ensure follow through. This interaction may be the attention that your child was trying to get. If you are applying consequences to an attention-seeking be sure the consequence is meaningful enugh to counteract any attention the child might be getting in the process.

Here are a few tips for successfully decreasing attention-seeking behaviors:

1) Don't let these behaviors get the better of you! Attention- seeking behaviors can be bothersome, to say the least. You may feel tempted to react or repeatedly ask your child to stop the behavior. Remind yourself that he wants your attention, so that should be the last thing you give him.