Question
I have a just-turned 3-year-old son. He has a problem with needing constant attention. My husband and I routinely engage in our own activities around our son, and he can entertain himself well, so we know what he is capable of. The problem is, that we live upstairs in my parents' house. Whenever we go downstairs, he is barraged by attention from his grandparents. This has resulted in him fleeing to them whenever I try to get him to do anything, positive or negative. In their defense, they defer to our authority regularly. However, getting him to engage with me or my husband and/or to play quietly by himself when downstairs is next to impossible. He does have a 9-month-old younger brother, and yes, he has been more attention-seeking since his arrival, but it manifests itself more when we are downstairs. As far as my husband and me, we do react in frustration when he is attention-seeking and know that is possibly not the best way to handle it. How can my husband and I react best upstairs to this behavior, and how do we handle the downstairs behavior? Thank you
