Origins of behavior are; parents and teacher pay more attention to misbehavior than the appropriate behavior. The children are not taught to ask for the attention they need, or they may be deprived of sufficient personal attention.
There are two characteristics of attention seeking behavior, the active characteristics are: a student does all kinds of behaviors that distract teacher and classmates: the passive characteristics are: a student exhibits one-pea-at-a-time behavior, operates on slow, slower, and slowest speeds.
When a student is seeking attention they have a legitimate need for positive recognition both verbally and nonverbally. The silver lining for a student who is misbehaving to get attention is that they do seek to have a relationship with the teacher or classmates.
The two principles of prevention are, first to catch the student being good by giving lots of attention for appropriate behavior. The second is to teach the student to directly ask for attention when they feel it is needed.
Two interventions strategies are Grandma's Law and Stand close by. The basis of grandma's law is the axiom "first we work, then we play." You must first state the behavior we want, and then give permission to do something they want to when they are finished. Stand close by is that physical proximity is another tool that helps minimize attention seeking behavior. While continuing with the lesson, simply move to stand next to the student who is misbehaving. No eye contact is made and nothing is said.
