What rewards work the best with people with ADHD? Or do rewards work at all?
Mothers and caretakers of children with ADHD shared their views on relevance and significance of the reward system.
Although not many approve of the idea of a reward to be given out for every task to be accomplished, they discussed the cons of compensating for every disciplined action. As a conclusion, one learns how to better the same old strategy, tweaked and served well.
In Moms’ Words…
- Everyone benefits from reward systems. What we lack with ADHD is motivation. If someone can motivate kids by offering them something like chocolates or television time, for task well completed, our job is done.
- ADHD needs immediate rewards. No delayed gratification!! Rewards don’t work for my son because of poor impulse control.
- My son knows that he has the power to get himself the reward whether or not he has completed the task. For e.g. If I told him no lunch till work get completed. He knows lunch will arrive, no matter what!
- It’s the executive dysfunction that makes it really tough to do things. So, if someone wanted to reward me if I would sprout wings and fly, no matter what they promised me, no matter how big the reward, I wouldn’t be able to do it. Even if they threatened to punish me if I didn’t do it, I still wouldn’t be able to do it.
- Rewards aren’t really effective for anyone. They have a temporary good effect, but ultimately, they end up being counter productive. Rewards are addictive just like substances. They can improve performance short term but to maintain or improve performance further (or prevent it from declining), the level of reward needs to increase continuously. And that’s challenging!
- Writing a list of “accomplishments” instead of just a to-do list is nice, makes it motivating.
- A treat of nice meal, a good movie…in exchange of a task completed. A feel-good solution!
- Money as a reward. I hate to admit but it works.
- A little treat of shopping online. When my daughter sees these packages coming at random times, this really helps her keep level-headed and happy. It doesn’t even need to be anything big.
- We have a prize box of little things. There are sensory items in there, fidgety, and just random kids’ stuff. So, they get to pick what they are driven at (what they need), at that moment. Works as a therapy as well as a reward!!
- I plan an outing or a trip every couple of months. When my kid gets troublesome, I remind him that there’s an adventure coming up. I also maintain calendars and visuals for them…these keep us all motivated. To see ourselves reaching close to a trip target, gives us all a high.
- My reward is in the form of liberty from work! I set a timer for 10-20 minutes and I don’t force my daughter to complete the work. I just remind her to do the task until the timer goes off. Then when the timer goes off, her reward is that she can QUIT!!
- I break down the task into steps, so it doesn’t feel like such a big thing. This reduces the pressure to complete the task. For example, with the dishes, I tell her to just scrape off the food into the bin and nothing more. She completes the task and feels a small win. Then I tell her to just clean 2 plates. For reading, I tell her to read just one paragraph. For writing, to write a few lines only, and so on. Each little step becomes an achievement.
