Give your child more immediate feedback and consequences
Give your child more immediate feedback and consequences
As Dr Virgina Douglas, a renowned Canadian psychologist and expert on ADHD, and others n oted long ago, children with ADHD seem much more under the control of the moment than normal children do. Either you become part of that moment, or you will have little influence over your child with ADHD.
As already explained, when confronted by a job that they find tedious, boring, or unrewarding, children with ADHD will feel the urge to find something else to do. If you want them to stay at a task, you’ll have to arrange for positive feedback and consequences that will make the task more rewarding, as well as mild negative consequences for shifting off – task. Similarly, when you’re attempting to change negative behaviors, you must provide quick rewards and feedback for behaving well and swift negative consequences for acting inappropriately.
Positive feedback can be given in the form of praise or compliments, as long as you state expressly and specifically what the child did that was positive. It can also be in the form of physical affection. IN some instances it will have to involve rewards such as extra privileges, or systems by which the child earns points toward privileges, because your praise will not be enough to motivate the child to stick with the assigned task.. Whatever type of feedback you give, however, the more immediately it can be provided, the more effective it will be.
For example, if a child with ADHD normally has problems playing nicely with a younger sibling, the most effective reinforcement of cooperative play would be for you to be on the alert for any instances of cooperation, sharing, and kindness shown by the child with ADHD and then give them immediate and mildly negative feedback and consequences after bullying the younger child. You tell the child exactly what he has just done (rather than yelling) and why it is not accept able; then you remove a privilege the child had access to that day, or some earned tokens in a token program.
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