I noticed it last night – I logged in to maintain things here on the blog, and spammers had been everywhere, leaving “comments” to advertise things. The tsunami of advertising for the holiday season is upon us.
What do the people you love really need? What do you genuinely need? These are good questions to ask right now, before the advertisers take over our brains. Most of us do not need more gadgets, more clothing, more dust-catchers. Some are already drowning in things they do not need.
When I am in a public place, I can’t help but notice the children who act out to get attention. I was lucky in my new motherhood that someone pointed out to me that I only paid attention to my toddlers when they did things I did not like – so they were very aggressive about doing things I didn’t like. It took some practice, but I learned to use my attention as the potent reward it was, paying attention to behavior I wanted to encourage and removing my attention (with time-out, if need be) to discourage misbehavior.
Children need attention. The very best time to give them attention is when they are doing things that we want to encourage. But if the only attention they can get is negative attention, they need attention so badly that they’ll settle for that. The choice is up to the parent or caregiver.
We all need attention. When was the last time you felt like someone truly listened to you, and took in what you were saying? When was the last time you sat quietly and listened to someone else? What if, instead of giving gifts, we paid attention to the people we love?
What if instead of receiving gadgets and tchotchkes, we got the pure undivided attention of those we love most? How lovely would that be?
