"Starved for attention".. which comes first?

[nextcommercial]

*I'm having this discussion right now with an adult friend, so I want other's opinions*

I have had several kids with lots of different personalities.

Some need more attention than others... they need the spotlight... they need to be the center of attention.

Some of those kids really don't get much attention at home, so they act silly and try to dance or sing over everybody else so you have to look at them.

One of my students is an only child, who lives with Mom, Dad, and Grandma. during the week, she spends a lot of time with her aunts who dote on her. But, she also dances, sings, talks all the time so we will look at her. She HAS to be the center of attention.

So, which comes first?

1. Are some people just born to need more attention than others?

2. Or are kids given so much attention that they require more?

3. Or does it start when they aren't given enough of the spotlight in the first place?

OH, and how do they grow up? If you were the attention hog as a kid, are you still like this? Are people just naturally drawn to you?

[ErinYay]

I was that kid, and it's hard to say. I'm the oldest of 5, 4 surviving. It goes like this: me, K (18 mo younger), J (34 week preemie with Prader-Willi Syndrome and died, presumably of SIDS, though who knows, at 10 months, when I was 4), E (6 years younger, 32 week preemie with cerebral palsy), and O (9 years younger, 30 week preemie, the only boy.)

SO. Obviously I had a lot to contend with to get the attention I needed, but I was apparently pretty high-needs in terms of needing praise and attention from infancy.

I was a bright, witty kid, and my parents made the mistake of a) praising me for my intelligence A LOT and b) letting me know exactly how smart I was, so being praised for being funny and clever is still something I need.

Other than K and me, the other 3 had a lot of medical issues that took a great deal of my parents' attention. The worst, by their accounts, was when K and I were 6 and 7, and my folks started Drs Doman and Delacato's patterning program with E. It was extremely intensive- hourly schedules, hoards of volunteers coming in all day, every day, and we acted out a lot, mostly by being little $h1t$.

Over all, for me, I was born a show-off, and my circumstances contributed to it a lot.

Good answer, huh?

(PRAISE ME, PRAISE ME! LOOK MA, NO HANDS!)

[zippy_francis]

Good question. I am interested to hear the responses.

Kind of seems like the chicken and the egg scenario.

But I have thought on both sides of the equation with people I have had dealings with. Some seem to ALWAYS need attention, whether good or bad, and will dramatize things or OVER-exaggerate small things in life to make it all about them and how hard or busy they are. I wonder, are they that way because their parents constantly fussed over them or are they that way because they just are programmed with their personality to be dramatic? Maybe they get their self worth or self importance from feeling like the center of attention.

With my DH, I think sometimes he is so obnoxious and loud because he was the 5th child out of 5. And he had 4 older sister's! So I think maybe he is so outgoing, talkative and obnoxious because HECK he was forgotten at the end. And had 4 sisters who were either going at it with each other or harassing him. So he had to stand out.

But then I think, well he was the ONLY boy. And his dad doted on him like no other. He even admits how unfair his parents were to his sisters once he came along. He was in all the sports and they went to all his activities. He always was the center of their attentions as a kid.

[CatsCradle]

I think any number of factors affect behavior that appears to be attention-seeking. Some of it is personality, some of it is cultural, some of it is connected to affirmation of self-worth, etc.
I don't think it is a question of needing attention. I tend to think more in terms of 'means of expression.' Some people are quiet, some are gregarious, some are overly dramatic. People who express themselves outwardly aren't necessarily attention seekers, just as those who don't outwardly express themselves are without need for attention. There are obviously attention-seekers out there (my goodness, isn't that the whole purpose of politics..lol), but I wouldn't put every singing and dancing child into an attention seeking category.

My DD (who is an only child) is constantly expressing herself in dance and song and story. She gets plenty of attention at home. She makes friends easily. She expresses herself dramatically at at home, on the bus, in the middle of the woods. Part of it may be her age, but I think that in most part it is because she is an extrovert. DH and I tend to be introverts and while I do like attention, and desparetly wanted attention as a child, my shyness has prevented me from expressing myself to the fullest. So I don't think there is any clear answer. People are born with certain personalities and life events impact the ways in which they express themselves, imo.

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by nextcommercial

So, which comes first?

1. Are some people just born to need more attention than others?

2. Or are kids given so much attention that they require more?

3. Or does it start when they aren't given enough of the spotlight in the first place?

4. All of the above.

I've seen both 2 and 3 play out a few times. DS1 is probably a little bit of 2 - he was the center of my whole universe (especially as my unsuccessful attempt to conceive and miscarriages mounted and my marriage fell apart). DS2 is definitely a 1. DD1 doesn't have an unusually high need for attention at all. Kids vary a lot.

[journeymom]

It seems like at the root of this is 'nature versus nurture'. Generally I believe we are all the sum of our individual personalities (nature) AND our interactions with the rest of the world (nurture). So, yeah #4, All of the above.

[nextcommercial]

I also think it's usually one of "all of the above". Each person is different.

The friend I was talking to is one of those "ME! LOOKATME!" kind of people. She's the last of four girls... so, she would have had to do some pretty obnoxious things to get attention in that house.

She's sure it's because she was the last born and nobody was easily shocked by the time she came along, so she had to raise the bar. But, while I agree with that, she's just naturally that way. She would have been a "lookatme" kind of kid anyway.

People are very, very drawn to her as an adult. She doesn't have to do anything, they just want to be around her. So, she gets her attention now by being a happy person that people want to have around them.

So, I think she's both #1 & #3.

I think kids can fall into any of the categories depending on the situation.

[choli]

My sister was like that, she had to be constantly the center of attention when she was a child, whether by singing, dancing or lying.

She is still the same - she has to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral, as they say