You’re sitting across the kitchen table from your 6-year-old son, Ethan. He’s quietly eating his Cheerios but he just asked you to help him find his favorite toy car. You’ve heard his request but your attention is focused on your phone, viewing lamps that just appeared in a texted ad. You’ve been looking to replace one that is in your living room.

Maybe you respond, “Be with you in one minute,” convinced that will do. Or, perhaps you don’t respond at all.

In this moment, you have just “phubbed” your son, attending to your phone rather than being fully present with him. Phubbing is a word that represents attending to a phone while “snubbing” someone. It can be practiced in any relationship, whether personal or work-related. Regardless of the context, it leads the person on the receiving end to feel ignored.

You may believe it is no big deal. Or you may convince yourself that you have already given him sufficient attention by helping him dress and preparing his cereal.

He may not say anything or he might repeat his question. He may feel ignored but be unable to identify that feeling. He may recognize his feeling but be afraid to speak up–something he’s not yet learned to feel comfortable doing in his six years. When done infrequently, your response is not necessarily problematic. However, a more consistent pattern of disregard can have a profound and lasting impact on your child.

Children experience connection through presence, the sense that a parent is offering undivided attention, truly listening to and being accepting of them. This doesn’t necessarily mean agreement. Presence involves eye contact, empathy, validation of feelings, and truly being attentive to the child’s inner experience as he reveals it in his words and actions.

Parental presence is the foundation for a healthy connection, one that helps a child form essential security and trust for healthy attachment in his relationships. It is an essential underpinning of sufficient

© Psychology Today