Making a Child Perform Isn't Connection, It's Depletion
Connection isn't getting your child to repeat what he knows to please you — it's observing, receiving, and treating him as a person. Performance-style connection is fast food: gone the moment it's eaten.
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Making a child perform is fast-food connection
A mother writes in that her 17-month-old son can identify shapes and colors, speak in sentences, and name dinosaurs, but her mother keeps making him "perform" — repeating things he's learned, clapping — and when he won't cooperate she grabs his arm and does it for him, and recently even kicked him in the butt. Janet says this isn't an isolated case: we often assume connecting with infants and toddlers means getting them to react to us, to imitate us. But this is "fast-food connection" — the child may smile because he's getting attention, but no one is truly seen.
— Janet LansburyWe're performing too
Connection goes both ways: we don't just make children perform, we're often performing ourselves rather than being ourselves. In her forthcoming book Baby Person, Janet writes that she used to dance, make funny faces, and try every trick to get a reaction out of babies in order to connect with them. These surface methods left her exhausted, and the payoff was tiny and fleeting — "I made her laugh" is just a moment. She says this isn't deep connection, it's all surface.
— Janet LansburyPerformance connection teaches children to be insincere
Janet lists five reasons connection shouldn't be a performance: one, it isn't real connection; two, it teaches children to be insincere — everything we do with children teaches them something, and this teaches that "connection requires performing rather than being yourself"; three, it wastes energy and effort, and parents can't afford it; four, it doesn't satisfy, and doesn't move the relationship toward trust; five, it subtly belittles the child — why should a child have to perform to hold our attention and interest?
— Janet LansburyCharismatic people are charismatic because they're paying attention to you
Janet quotes something she's always remembered: certain people are charismatic to us not because of how they present themselves or what they put out, but because they're genuinely interested in us and paying attention to us. Children especially need this, because it's harder for them to express themselves proactively and they don't know what to say to connect. They need us to tune in to their subtleties: what they're interested in, what their expressions are saying, who they are.
— Janet LansburyEven a parenting expert couldn't connect with her grandchild
Janet read a book by a well-known psychologist regarded as a parenting expert, in which the author — now a grandparent — said she simply couldn't connect with a toddler grandchild and felt the child had no chemistry with her. Janet's immediate read: this grandparent was trying too hard — wanting to initiate games, wanting the child to cooperate, she was "operating" rather than connecting. Her method works for every child from infancy on: observe, listen, receive, pay attention.
— Janet LansburyComment on what you see instead of pretending to be interested
The concrete approach: treat the child as a person with depth, talent, interests, and a real point of view worth knowing. Then comment on what you see — "You're looking over there, did you hear a dog?" "You seem really interested in those blocks, I see you lining them up." Not pretending to be interested, but actually becoming interested. Children can tell the difference between "good job" and "wow, that took a while, I saw you thinking about which one goes on top, and the round one rolled down."
— Janet LansburyChildren can put a grandparent's behavior in context
How do you set down the fear that "this is bad for the child"? Janet says children are more aware than we think. They know "this is my grandparent, this isn't how my parents treat me, this is just how this person is." So it won't affect how they feel about themselves. Parents have enormous influence, but grandparents are different — even with frequent contact, children can place it in the context of "my relationship with that person."
— Janet LansburyNarrate instead of correcting
Janet advises this mother not to try to teach her mother or correct her, but to connect, reflect, and trust them to handle the relationship themselves. Concretely: if her son does what grandma asks, let it go; if he won't and grandma kicks him, don't say to grandma "you shouldn't do that," but say to her son "Grandma really likes it when you do what she asks, she's really into this" — without sarcasm, just stating what's happening. This is called sportscasting, and it helps both the child and the grandmother understand what's going on.
— Janet LansburyThe child is already standing up for himself
This mother says she doesn't want to seem like she's always complaining or controlling, but she also doesn't like her son being treated as entertainment or a trophy. Janet says we can't control how others see our children — this is a "welcome to parenting" moment. But the good news: the child is already standing up for himself, refusing to be treated as entertainment or a trophy — which is itself proof of his parents' parenting. You can keep supporting him, saying "you don't want to do what Grandma asked," then saying to Grandma "you really want him to do it," and then asking "what are you two going to do about it?"
— Janet LansburyIn their own words · checked verbatim
But are they feeling seen? Are we feeling seen? No, it's this fast food kind of connecting that isn't going to help us bond with that child.
Janet Lansbury5:11
Two, it encourages inauthenticity because whatever we do with children is teaching them something.
Janet Lansbury6:14
Why should they have to perform for us?
Janet Lansbury7:19
It's because they are sincerely interested and paying attention to us.
Janet Lansbury8:19
They have it. They have it just by being them.
Janet Lansbury11:25
But really, we have such little control over what other people do.
Janet Lansbury13:33
He's not allowing himself to be used as amusement or a trophy. He's already got that lesson.
Janet Lansbury18:42
Glossary
- sportscasting
- Describing what's happening like a sports commentator — stating the facts without judging or taking sides.
How to listen
Parents dealing with relatives pushing their child to perform; caregivers who want to understand what "connection" actually means and how to build a real relationship with infants and toddlers.
The book promotion and show intro at the top, 0:00-1:04, can be skipped.