Eye contact

there are many reasons why kids (or adults) don't show eye contact. ~cultural norm ~shy/scared ~physical abuse ~low self esteem, lack of confidence ~autism or other diagnoses ~no one ever taught them that most people like eye contact so they don't know it is often expected advice: Don't make him give you eye contact! (pet peeve of mine, sorry) I just don't see the need for eye contact. Do you see specific problems that you think are caused by or related to the lack of eye contact?

Children who have been harmed or neglected often have poor eye contact. Eye contact enhances inerpersonal skills, communication and connection. Learning to make eye conact with parents is vital, but can not be rushed or done harshly. I always used the "Let me see those beautiful brown eyes." line with my dd and then maintained eye contact for incremental time perios, starting with about 5 sec. Once she could look for five sec, I added 1 more etc. I did this sort of excersise daily. If she looked away I playfully said "oops! where'd you go?" We also played peek-a-boo and other "baby" games that she SHOULD have been playing to learn interpersonal skills, while she ws being neglected. We also learned to wink, which she loved and required her to look at my eyes. One weekend we played a wink game, for every time we caught eachother winking, we both got an m-n-m! while I don;t advocate "forcing" someone to establish eye contact, working on making eye contact is a worthy goal. Eye contact conveys trust,love and nuturing. I recommend the book "The Connected Child" by Karyn Purvis for lots of games, tips and tools for connecting. The book is less theory than others, and more ideas to put into practice.

There is a game I used to play with a lot of my clients. I called it the name game. Basically, you toss a ball back and forth to each other. The person without the ball can do whatever they want but as soon as the other one calls their name, they have to freeze and look at the person with the ball. When both people "lock" eyes, the person throws the ball. My clients loved doing all kinds of silly things while waiting for me to say their name. It was fun for them and little did they realize that they were "working".

I'm not sure it is the eye contact per se that you are trying to encourage, but the childs ability and interest in interacting with people. Good eye contact is a sign of that interest. Our dd is 4 and had poor eye contact due to neglect (among other issues). We always tried to get down at her level and talk to her (not at her.) Sometime we would gently place our fingers on her chin so she could concentrate on us. When she does try to talk to us, but can't look at us, we try to point out that the floor can't hug her (if she is looking for a hug for instance.) We tried peek-a-boo at first and it was a disaster. Turns out that a blanket on her face is a ptsd trigger. So we waited awhile and started peek-a-boo with a book (safe). Then we moved to peek-a-boo with us - but using hands over our eyes only. It has taken a total of 1.5 years of therapy before we met her and 8 months with us to get to the poiint where she seeks out eye contact unless she knows she is in trouble or has to apologize for something. Lately, I've tried her putting her hands gently on my cheeks and I put my hands gently on her cheeks while we talk to each other. We are addressing all sorts of issues here, but she seems to be able to focus a bit more. We only do this when we are talking about how well she tried at something, or that I love her, etc. So positive statement, positive touch. Good luck -

I think it depends on if there are other issues that concern you. If so, you might have him evaluated. For some children, eye contact is physically painful (a study this year found that eye contact triggered pain receptors in the brain that could be seen on an MRI), for others it causes sensory overload. In that case, looking away help them process the auditory information. Other kids are just shy.

I guess I should say that we "encourage" him to make eye contact, rather than "make". That would be a better choice of words. We are not seeing any specific problems at this point. It's just that there's so much written about good eye contact in what we've read about attachment. It's a bit unsettling when a child won't look you in the eye but maybe it's not such a big deal. I guess we won't fret over it at this point. He's experienced many changes in the past 6 months (and we've only had him for 3 of those months) and it may just take some time. Thanks to everyone for the good advice!

Coming in late here. Just saw this and wanted to state, I was raised in a good home with two parents. No abuse. I HATE having to make eye contact. It makes me uncomfortable. I was shy as a child, and it may stem from that, but I fail to see why it is necessary to constantly stare at someone while you are talking to them.

Is he quirky in any other ways?The inability to maintain eye contact is a sign of Aspergers Syndrome. Do some research to see if he has any of the other signs, early intervention could change his life.Tam

Wow, a lot has happened since I originally posted this question more than 2 years ago. Our son is now 8 years old. He was diagnosed last fall with FASD and I've been doing a great deal of research on that subject since then. Additionally, the neurologist has ordered some more tests (beyond the basic psych eval) aimed more at determining ds's emotional/functional/social age. He's on track academically but he's so young in other areas. We've only had the intake interview so far but the subject of Asperger's has come up and, as much as I hate to admit it, ds does appear to have some indicators for that but we'll see. As far as the eye contact goes, I don't require a child to "stare" at me for the duration of a conversation, but I feel that it's reasonable to expect some level of eye contact during any verbal exchange--with anyone. What prompted me to start this thread was that he always seemed to look "through" me or past me, never at me. He still does this but it doesn't bug me so much any more because now I know a bit more of what's going on with him. I'm still searching for as much information as I can find so that I can meet him where he's at and not have unreasonable expectations of him.

Glad to hear youre getting somewhere with him :)I highly recommend reading Temple Grandins book on Aspergers "The way I see it" or watching her made for tv movie "Temple Grandin".She is a Doctor with Aspergers, and gives some inside information on it. [url=http://www.templegrandin.com/]Dr. Temple Grandin's Official Autism Website[/url]Good luck to you!Tam