Turn Toward Them: Why Your Attention Matters More Than You Think

There are seasons of parenting when attentiveness feels like an unreasonable request. A newborn wakes up again. A toddler has apparently decided that every object in the house needs to be investigated with his mouth. Somebody needs lunch. Somebody else is crying. Your phone buzzes. The soup is on the stove. And just when you sit down, a small child begins telling a story that contains thirty seven unnecessary details and absolutely no recognizable ending. Being attentive sounds beautiful until you actually have children. Then you realize attention costs something.

That is why a study we discussed on the Celebrate Kids Podcast caught my attention. Researchers from Oregon Health & Science University examined how sensitive early caregiving might interact with prenatal factors associated with later ADHD related risk. The study suggested that warm, responsive caregiving parents noticing children's cues, responding to them, talking with them, reading, smiling, and using a calm tone may help buffer some of those early risks. This is not a prescription or a promise that attentive parenting prevents ADHD. Development is far more complex than that. But the research points toward something parents should find both challenging and hopeful: ordinary presence matters.

Attention Is More Than Hearing

A baby babbles from the floor, and we can technically hear the sound without responding to it. A toddler holds something up while we keep looking at a phone. A child finishes a puzzle in a waiting room and glances over to see whether we noticed. Those moments feel tiny because nothing dramatic happened. But children are constantly asking questions without words: Did you see that? Do I matter enough for you to turn toward me?

Responsive parenting answers those questions physically before it answers them verbally. We smile. Repeat the baby's sound. Say, "You did it." Ask what the child built. Laugh because whatever happened was genuinely funny. There is something powerful in that rhythm of action and response. Children discover that when they reach outward, someone trustworthy may reach back.

Our Phones Cost Parents Something Too

Most conversations about technology focus on what screens are doing to children. We should ask another question: What are they doing to us? A phone can steal moments of joy. We sit at a playground while our child learns to pump his legs on a swing and somehow the more interesting thing becomes whatever appeared in the feed. We are physically present but miss the moment.

The cost is not simply guilt about screen time. We lose information about our children. If we did not see what happened, we cannot talk about it later. If we did not notice how they reacted, we learn less about what delights, frightens, frustrates, or motivates them. Over time, those little observations become the raw material of relationship. Knowing children comes partly from paying attention when nothing important appears to be happening.

Children Need to Be Individually Known

Dr. Kathy often says that we should not parent the herd. This matters even in a large family. Children raised in the same house are not the same child eight times. One needs to talk immediately. Another needs an hour before telling you what happened. One interprets correction as helpful. Another hears disappointment before you have even finished the sentence. One baby calms when rocked a certain way while another seems personally offended by the same technique.

Responsive parenting requires enough attention to discover those differences. That does not mean parents must interpret every facial expression correctly or become emotionally available every second. It means we resist replacing relationship with assumptions. We observe long enough to learn who is actually in front of us.

The Goal Is Not Perfect Parenting

Research like this can easily produce shame, especially for exhausted parents. Maybe you remember feeding a baby while staring at your phone. Maybe your child is six, ten, or sixteen and you hear words like "early sensitive caregiving" and immediately think the window closed while you were busy getting everyone through the day. It did not.

Earlier experiences matter, and certain developmental patterns may be easier to establish when children are young. But "easier" is not the same as "only." Human beings continue to learn, adapt, relate, and change. Sometimes later growth requires breaking an existing pattern before establishing another one, which takes more intentional effort. But parents can still turn toward a child today. You can begin listening differently tonight.

Start With the Next Response

There is freedom in asking, "What is the next wise thing?" rather than continually asking, "What should I have done five years ago?" Put the phone down during one predictable part of the day. Look up when a child walks into the room. Sit on the floor for ten minutes. Read together. Ask a question and resist answering it yourself. Notice what happens when your child begins telling you something and your whole posture says, "I have time for this."

Those choices will not erase all the difficulties in a child's life. Neither will they guarantee a particular neurological outcome. They do something more fundamental: they rebuild relationship through repeated evidence that the child is worth noticing.

Attention Builds Security

This connects naturally to the first of Dr. Kathy's Five Core Needs: security, the question, "Who can I trust?" Security is not established only when we tell children, "You can trust me." They learn trust from accumulated experience. I cried, and somebody came. I spoke, and somebody listened. I made a mistake, and correction did not destroy the relationship. I asked a hard question, and Dad did not panic. I needed help, and Mom stayed.

Long before children can articulate a theology of God's faithfulness, they are learning what faithfulness feels like through embodied relationships. Parents are not God, and we will fail our children. But we can reflect something true about Him when we consistently turn toward them.

God Inclines His Ear

Psalm 116 gives us a beautiful picture: "I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live." The image is wonderfully physical. God is not portrayed as passively registering sound. He inclines His ear. He turns toward the one who cries out.

That posture tells us something about love. Love notices. Love makes room for another voice. When parents bend toward a toddler's half formed sentence or put down a device because their child has something to say, we are practicing a very old kind of love. We communicate, "What you are saying matters enough for me to turn."

The First Community Is Often Us

In the earliest years, parents and caregivers are much of a child's community. Eventually the circle widens to siblings, grandparents, teachers, pastors, friends, coaches, and others. But early on, we are the faces that respond. That is an enormous responsibility, but it is also an extraordinary privilege. Children do not need parents who produce constant stimulation. They need people who are available enough to respond.

That can require sacrifice. Good parenting often does. We put something down. Delay a task. Simplify a schedule. Decide that an email can wait five minutes. Other centeredness is not glamorous, but children often flourish in its wake.

ADHD Is Not a Verdict on a Child

The podcast also raised an important caution. Because the study included ADHD related risk, parents should not hear this conversation as saying ADHD is simply the result of inattentive parenting. The source does not support that conclusion, and neither should we. ADHD is complex, and a diagnosis can sometimes be deeply helpful because it gives a child and family language for patterns that have been confusing for years.

Children with ADHD also frequently display significant strengths. They may be highly creative, energetic, persistent, inventive, or gifted at solving problems in unexpected ways. We want to support attention and regulation without making children believe their brain is defective or that their diagnosis tells the whole story of who they are.

Attention Today Still Matters

Whether your child is eight months old or eighteen years old, presence retains power. The response will look different. A baby needs the returned smile. A preschooler may need you on the floor. A ten year old may want you to watch the trick they practiced. A teenager may begin talking at 10:47 p.m., approximately three minutes after you decided you could no longer form a coherent thought. The developmental moment changes. The invitation remains remarkably similar: turn toward them.

Our children will eventually hear us tell them to trust God. We will teach them that God hears them and remains faithful. One way we prepare them to understand those words is by becoming parents who practice a reflected version of that posture. We incline our ears. We listen before the whisper becomes a shout. We make eye contact. We stay. And over thousands of ordinary moments, security begins to take root.

Engaging Attentiveness Through the 8 Great Smarts

• Word Smart: Listen carefully when they tell stories, even when the story wanders. Read aloud, repeat their words when they are young, and ask questions that show you heard what they said.

• Logic Smart: Pay attention to their questions and reasoning. Instead of immediately correcting, ask, "How did you come to that conclusion?" Let them know their thinking is worth understanding.

• Picture Smart: Notice what they draw, build, photograph, arrange, or imagine. Ask them to show you details rather than only saying, "That's nice."

• Music Smart: Listen to the song they want you to hear. Notice rhythm, humming, or musical interests and ask what they enjoy about what they are hearing.

• Body Smart: Get down on the floor, throw the ball, walk together, wrestle appropriately, build, or work side by side. Attention communicated through shared activity can feel especially powerful.

• Nature Smart: Go outside and let them point things out. Stop long enough to look at the bug, cloud, rock, animal, or plant they think is important.

• People Smart: Give them your face. These children often notice responsiveness quickly, so eye contact, conversation, shared laughter, and genuine interest carry particular weight.

• Self Smart: Do not interpret quiet as an invitation to ignore them. Give them space, but check in thoughtfully and be available when they are finally ready to share.

Remember: However your child is smart, the message is simple: turn toward them often enough that they learn what it feels like to be worth someone's full attention.