I have noticed this strange phenomenon lately. It is children who interrupt conversations, resulting in their parents giving them all their attention. It strikes me as rather odd. Or is it wrong to expect a child to say excuse me or wait until an adult is finished speaking. When I need someones attention, I say their name or excuse me and wait until they can give me their attention. To me it is upsetting when someone walks up while I am in mid sentence, or listening to ones story and just starts talking, adult or child. I wonder then thinking behind this.
So I ask you...Are parents afraid that their child won't feel important if they don't respond to them instantly? Is it perfectly acceptable to interrupt?
Or am I just so boring that any interruption is a breath of fresh air?
4 comments:
Not sure yet, as T's just turned one so interruptions are still acceptable (?). We do ask her to "wait a minute" sometimes, but she definitely already has our attention.
I guess it depends on why the child is interrupting. If it's an urgent matter (e.g. another child's hurt, the child NEEDS to pee and needs help w/ that), then I think we should respond to them instantly.
If it's just because they want attention, or if they want a treat, then it's perfectly okay (in fact, mandatory) to teach them to wait.
Their teachers or other adult figures in their lives will thank you (the parent/guardian) for this, too.
Yeah, I am thinking older kids. If Ramona has to pee she just yells that she has to pee, if she is hurt it is obvious, she has an urgent voice. I am talking about regular everyday things. Like, "Can I have some milk?" Or, I got an invitation to such and such a party." Or, I finished cleaning my room, can I..." I am just bewildered when interrupted mid-sentence by kids and seeing parents not even be phased. I even had one time when I was explaining something to someone, Ramona interrupted and I said, "Hold on a second." and the person I was talking to (who I had met 10 minutes earlier) said, "I want to know what she has to say." He looked at me like I ignore my kid! Adults have feelings to you know. And I definitely have terrible memories of being ignored and interrupted by adults, so am very aware of kids' needs to be heard.
In some cultures, including my own (Jewish) and french, talking is a game of energy...interruptions flow freely as long as you up the flow.
I am personally very comfortable with that style, and find many WASP-y types to be strangely upset by interruption, "let me finish!", they say, as if they can't handle multiple parallel threads of overlapping discourse.
Good point, but I don't really think it is relevant to the post if that was the intent. Multiple parallel threads of overlapping discourse is one thing, dropping one conversation for another is completely different.
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