I so often hear from parents that they have tried behaviour charts for ADHD and they never seem to work. I know from experience that isn’t because the child doesn’t respond very well to it – It’s because the parents don’t follow their own guidelines. And that is one of the reasons why ADHD type behaviours get worse – the structure needs to be in place. Over the many years I have been working with HET, developing it and evaluating it – I have drawn up a behaviour reward chart system that is very effective – if parents follow through!!!
So let’s look at the main reasons why behaviour charts don’t work:
- The parents are not consistent with enforcing the rules and guidelines behind achieving the rewards through the chart. Either they let the child down – in which case why bother from the child’s point of view.
- Or …they give in and award the incentive without it being earned through the chart – in which case – why bother?
- Or…. They blow all their chances in the morning and cannot pull anything back throughout the rest of the day – in which case, why bother?
I think you might be seeing where I am coming from with this line of thinking – and 99% of childrens behaviour charts out there fall into this category – and you know what? 99% of parents out there also fall into this category and what is more they focus on negative or punishing behaviours that take things away from their child or deny them certain privileges if they do NOT do certain things that are expected or required from them.
Think about this one – how would you feel about this happening to you? – a bit resentful is probably an understatement here!
And what’s more if you focus on the negative behaviours – guess what? That is exactly what you get more of – negative behaviours – one good reason why this approach really doesn’t work.
So, what are the key success elements of a good behaviour chart?
- Firstly, it has to be clearly understood by everyone involved what the behaviours are that are going to be rewarded and how they will be rewarded.
- There also has to be a clear understanding of the consequences for not choosing those
behaviours. - Once that is agreed everyone has to stick by it
- Always focus on the positive behaviour – give an agreed number of reminders / directions if your child is showing the negative
behaviour. - Have a ‘buy back’ system – we all have days where we ‘blip’ ! – the point is that we should focus on success and achievement not failure to achieve – it is the ’feel good factor’ that really makes this system work.
- Stick to the ground rules – your chart will be undermined if you don’t, then your child will not have a consistent boundary to follow – the whole point of using a chart is giving structure.
So there’s a few ideas around how to work with behaviour charts with ADHD and other behaviour problems. There is more information on how to plan for this, design it, implement it and develop it on our website www.hetwebsite.com .
