Sorry to kind of hijack this thread, but I would like to get comments relating to this statement:

It's also not just any behavior managment program either. What has been shown (by research) to work is a rewards based behavior management /home token economy program that balances rewards with natural & logical consequences.

As if that weren't complicate enough, the reward or reinfiircer has to be "immediate (or as close as you can get it)" and occur "at the point of performance;" meaning where the target or problem behavior took place.

What do you think of our system: Our son (7) has a checklist on the refrigerator with his study tasks. After he finishes one of his tasks, he gets a check.

On Friday, we count up the checks from Monday, and give him a reward: money. The rewards double for each day's worth of checks: $0.25 for 1 day, $0.50 for 2, $1.00 for 3, $2.00 for 4, and $4.00 for all five. On weekends, he gets $1.00 for all checks, which he receives after dinner. He is allowed to use the money for anything he likes.

He is doing fairly well on it. Last week he had 5 of the seven days filled. We also do a few more things to make the tasks themselves more interesting for him.

He recently asked me for another checklist for household chores. Ever the entrepreneur... :)

I love your system. I use similar systems in my elementary level special education classroom. Most kids, included kids with ADHD, really respond well to positive reinforcement! Marie

Monetary $$$ rewards has always worked with our son.

He was never one to "wait" for checkmarks to add up to "something" that he will be able to do in the "future". Like we could never bribe him with going to a carnival or saving up for a playstation game. He needs immediate results.

At his school, they also have a reward system. The checkmarks add up to something special on Fridays. This seems to work.

What doesn't work is when they get hole punches for bad behavior. If they had a bad day on Monday and get several hole punches, their whole week is shot. They need to be able to start over daily (or hourly if needed.)

Thank you for posting your success stories:)

Like we could never bribe him with going to a carnival or saving up for a playstation game. He needs immediate results. The kid likes cold, hard, cash. I suspect the young Donald Trump did too.


They need to be able to start over daily (or hourly if needed.)
An excellent point!

One of the things that has been proven time and again is that the rewards need to be "immediate" and occur at "the point of performace," which is where the behavior occurred.

..and don't forget to vary the rewards over time. If it's cash...you may have to increase the amount over time to make it appealing. Better to rotate your rewards towards your childs interests. Money can also be used but it shouldn't be the only reward over, say 10 years.

As far as Behavior Modifications, we tried everything under the sun and nothing ever phased our add/ocd/mood disorder son.

We tried time outs, the reward system, grounding him, locking him in his room, taking away all his toys, etc... Soap in the mouth didn't help, nor did spanking.

It got so bad that on a few occassions I drove him over to a house that I knew takes care of foster kids and told him to get out. Of course he would cry and promise to be good. Then he'd do the same things over and over again.

When we went out to eat at a local fast food restaurant, we'd drive across the street to the Childrens Home and eat in their parking lot and talk about the kids that are living there and whether he wanted to live there instead. By the way he acted, obviously he didn't want to be part of our family. He'd apologize and promise to try harder.

On another occasion, I drove him to a place that has small housing facilities for juvenile delinquents. I made up some story about which house had what age kids and how often the kids get to see their parents. He was good for the next few hours and then was back to being himself.

I remember several years ago we made an appt to see a Psychologist (rather then our regular Psychiatrist that we get our meds from.) We were hoping to get some feedback on some ground breaking new behavior modifications that we had not yet tried.

Anyway, the Psychologist was terrible. He tried to make it seem like my son was doing his behaviors on purpose, and that we were not parenting correctly.

I remember he frowned on our rewarding my son with money. He said that if we give him a dollar here and a dollar there, eventually we would have to pay him more money in order to motivate him. A dollar won't hack it. This never happened (and we never went back to see that doctor either.)

We have been giving him monetary rewards since he was little. Like 6 or 7. He is now 12. We have never had to "up" his dollar amount.

Even if this were the case, boy would it be worth it! If I were a millionaire, I'd pay my adhd/ocd/mood disorder son $1000 per day just to keep the peace in our family.

Money does not always work, especially when he is in "one of those moods", but it helps on many occasions.

A few years ago when he was in 5th grade, the school was going on a Bowling Party Field Trip but only the kids that had "no behavior issues" during a certain period of time. I told them that they were setting my son up for failure by saying "no behavior issues". This was an impossible task for him. He by no means is perfect and we don't expect him to be perfect. I also told them that if a reward of Bowling worked for adhd behaviors, we'd live in a bowling alley. The whole family would. No doubt about it.

Last year, his middle school went on a field trip to Six Flags amusement park but only those that had "no behavior issues". Again, this was asking him to do the impossible. He was doing fairly well. He did have some small issues but they were handled through the steps that were outlined in his Behavior Plan and did not effect the field trip criteria.

Believe it or not, the day before he was going to get to go to Six Flags, he got an out of school suspension for spitting on a hand rail and some girls put their hands in it. (They don't mess around with bodily fluids.)

Anyway, all I can say is that my son doesn't do that well in math, but boy can he count money. :)

The rewards & punishments thing has not worked at all for my son. Now he is 14, so obviously he is not enticed by things that would work for a 7 year old. This summer we took his playstation away after several days of incessant procrastination, not doing the few simple things he was supposed to do. He was told he could have it back when the summer homework assignments were completed. I thought this would motivate him to finish early. It could have been done in a week of not too stressful work. But NOOO! He still refused to do the work, eventually finished it the last day of summer. And then had the nerve to be really angry at me that we took the playstation away and never gave it back. He tells me that not having it so long made him not want to try to get it back. It almost has had the reverse effect. Not to mention the effect on me....makes me CRAZY!

I have seen this over & over with him. Normal rewards & punishments never work. At one point, it seemed that he was always grounded. The psychologist told me that ADD kids do not understand clearly the rules of cause & effect. They have no idea of the steps to take to fix something so they just alter their expectations so as not to always be disappointed. This spills over into lack of motivation for grades, sports performance, really everything. Mediocrity is his middle name. And being a teenager, when I clearly tell him what he should do to fix the problem, he gets angry that I always tell him what to do, when and how. HELP!

He tells me that not having it so long made him not want to try to get it back. It almost has had the reverse effect.
You know, that's almost exactly how it was with me. I never got to see the reward side of the equation, though.

I was also a chronic under-achiever. If I had a nickel for every time a teacher told me, "If you would just apply yourself," I'd have a lot of nickels.

At least your son eventually got his work done, though. I'd have most probably blown it off altogether.

I really like the ideas about varying the reward system. One thing we recently instated is that on the days he goes to his tutor, he gets most of his checks (he still needs to do his homework and read 1 story).

Now I've been inspired to change up the payment system. Perhaps something like daily payouts, instead of the progressive thing we do on weekdays.

Now that my son has his own money, he is finding all sorts of ways to spend it, so I think it will remain motivating for a while. But I agree that changing the details from time to time will probably be more effective.

My son really doesn't give us a lot of behavior problems. Getting him to do something like study or pick up his toys can be an exercise in frustration, but we don't get a lot of defiance-type stuff.

But if he gets into one of his moods, it can be very trying. It's like he's pathologically intent on getting us mad. When he is in one of these moods, he will literally run out in traffic to get a rise out of us. I don't strike my son, but I've tried just about everything else, and nothing works during these times.

The only thing that will stop him during those times is my drill sergeant routine: get in his face and yell in that special way that gets results. I feel bad about doing it, and in a way it's just as coercive as physical violence, but it can get to a point where he's got to be stopped for his own safety.

Taking away privileges doesn't phase him. He kind of regrets it the next day, but doesn't seem too put out to go a week without a TV or video games. From now on I will try to avoid these long punishments, since I agree with adhdxyz that he needs to have a clean slate.

Most add/adhd'ers are highly sensitive and emphathic, as is my son. His feelings get hurt and he also shows his feelings very easily.

I have done the drill sergeant routine with him in the past and he doesn't like it at all and it didn't work in our case. When he asks why I keep yelling at him, I told him it's because he must like me talking to him like a drill sergeant otherwise he wouldn't act the way he does.

He has it hard enough as it is and the last thing he needs is to have his mom yelling at him too. (I am his #1 die hard advocate even though he gets on my last nerve.)

What has been working lately is when he freaks out about something, I start to cry and leave the room. Sometimes my crying is real. Most of the times it's not. He really feels bad and comes over and tells me he's sorry and that even though we might treat each other bad, we still love each other, etc...

We have a "sign" of holding our hand up like in a stop position. When this is done, the other person needs to immediately walk away and cool down. We talk about how "no means no" and "stop means stop".

Also, a few times recently, he has gotten into "one of those moods" where he's totally upset because we won't take him shopping or out to eat or somewhere. I tell him that his behavior scares me and that if he were married and had kids, his wife and kids would be cuddled in the corner scared until he calmed down. He then realizes that he needs to mellow out.

He is 12 years old and I keep reminding him that eventually he is going to want to get a girlfriend and if he acts the way he does, she will no doubt leave him.

It can only get better.

P.S. He has assured us that he is never going to leave us because he loves us so much. (Oh boy!)