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I have had several of these children in my care this last year and I never quite know how to handle them. It seems they are either only children, have some sort of a special need/medical reason parents feel guilty about, or they are the baby of the family separated by many years from older siblings. It appears that they receive TONS of attention from parents/siblings at home. Then when they are here in a group setting they act out constantly trying to get the attention on themselves here as well.
I know the general consensus is to just respond with "Go Play," until they get it. What I'm wondering about is those rare quiet times where you end up with one of them by themselves. This doesn't happen often, but I've had a few times where one comes early and there may be 30 minutes before anyone else arrives or my own children wake up. And then they are all over me. If I say, "Go Play Toys," they are asking me one question after another, showing me the toy, asking for help (which they obviously don't need), needing a tissue, an extra bathroom break, anything to get me to focus on them exclusively.
Now, if I had a few quiet moments with my own children I would scoop them into my lap, read a story, do finger plays, talk about the day, etc. And we would both cherish the time together. But I'm afraid to do that with these kids as it seems that any and all individual attention is met with more attempts at seeking additional attention later on. My aunt keeps telling me that these kids obviously need the attention and by not giving them enough I'm setting myself up for failure with their behavior. However, I feel that they need desperately to learn to be responsible for their own play/entertainment. Not b/c I don't want to play with them or spend time with them, but b/c they haven't developed this skill and it is negatively affecting everyone in the group. How do you handle this?
I don't want to be withholding something they need, but I genuinely feel like in each of the 3 cases that immediately come to mind, giving extra attention only increased the negative behavior later in the day. Has this been your experience as well? Any suggestions or even just an "I've experienced that too?"
I know the general consensus is to just respond with "Go Play," until they get it. What I'm wondering about is those rare quiet times where you end up with one of them by themselves. This doesn't happen often, but I've had a few times where one comes early and there may be 30 minutes before anyone else arrives or my own children wake up. And then they are all over me. If I say, "Go Play Toys," they are asking me one question after another, showing me the toy, asking for help (which they obviously don't need), needing a tissue, an extra bathroom break, anything to get me to focus on them exclusively.
Now, if I had a few quiet moments with my own children I would scoop them into my lap, read a story, do finger plays, talk about the day, etc. And we would both cherish the time together. But I'm afraid to do that with these kids as it seems that any and all individual attention is met with more attempts at seeking additional attention later on. My aunt keeps telling me that these kids obviously need the attention and by not giving them enough I'm setting myself up for failure with their behavior. However, I feel that they need desperately to learn to be responsible for their own play/entertainment. Not b/c I don't want to play with them or spend time with them, but b/c they haven't developed this skill and it is negatively affecting everyone in the group. How do you handle this?
I don't want to be withholding something they need, but I genuinely feel like in each of the 3 cases that immediately come to mind, giving extra attention only increased the negative behavior later in the day. Has this been your experience as well? Any suggestions or even just an "I've experienced that too?"
I took colored craft sticks and assigned each child a color. For every positive interaction I would move their stick from one pocket to the other. This way I could keep track of all the positive interactions I was having and up them as needed. Almost always these attention seeking kids had waaaaaaaaaaaay more *positive* interactions than the other kids. 
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