Help for Parents: Managing ADHD with Behavior Modification?

Answer 1

High anxiety often follows the words, “Your child has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).” Concerned about whether their child will require medication, and at a loss as to what other ADHD treatments might be available, parents wonder what they can do. Further exacerbating their concerns are disquieting media reports about ADHD, coupled with unnerving anecdotes from other parents. However, offering solace to parents and children, behavior modification may be the answer.

Based on the premise that children respond positively to rewards and seek to avoid negative consequences, behavior modification progressively shapes a child’s behavior. While it takes many forms and incorporates a variety of terms, parents who implement behavior modification essentially employ three techniques: modeling, positive reinforcement and negative consequences. But first, parents must modify their own behaviors.

The importance of parents maintaining calm and even-tempered demeanors — refraining from yelling and threatening — cannot be overstated. Despite the demanding and overwhelming nature of working with a child who has ADHD, calm parents will communicate more firmly and effectively with their child. Additionally, parents must be consistent in the administration of rewards and negative consequences. Having amended their own behaviors accordingly, parents are then ready to begin modeling appropriate actions for their child.

Setting an example of desired behavior is what psychologists refer to as modeling. Finding their education impeded and their social interactions marred by conduct that includes impulsivity, distractibility and lack of organization, children with ADHD often experience frustration, taking the form of disobedience and other counterproductive behaviors. Modeling the appropriate and desired conduct, parents provide their child a visual pattern to follow and a better understanding of what is expected.

Moreover, by selecting one behavior at a time to correct, and rewarding their child each time he or she presents the correct behavior, parents supply positive reinforcement that assists their child’s development of appropriate behavior. Whether praise, a tangible item or points toward an ultimate prize, children modify their actions in order to attain the reward.

In time, parents then may require the child to exhibit the desired behavior for progressively longer periods of time or on a more frequent basis before providing the positive reinforcement. In so doing, parents gradually work toward terminating the reward as their child successfully learns appropriate behavior. It is then time to begin correcting a different behavior. Equally effective, negative consequences imposed by parents curtail inappropriate conduct as the child seeks to avoid the unpleasant experience by presenting appropriate behavior.

Handled with patience, consistence and love, parents may find behavior modification to be an effective means of managing ADHD in their children.