The Balanced Life, Huntsville Alabama

On a weekly basis, I meet with parents who struggle to discipline their children effectively. In some cases, they are searching for a diagnosis to explain their child’s inappropriate behavior and in others, they are desperately looking for a way to control their child. While the symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder and related disorders can present themselves with negative behaviors, there are some ways to combat these. Parents can modify their children’s behavior with some easy principles and by using one word: CONSISTENCY.

Basic psychology defines positive reinforcement as a powerful tool to help shape and change behavior by presenting a motivating item to the person after the desired behavior is exhibited. This makes the behavior more likely to happen in the future. To put it in a simple way to parents- Rewarding your child for good behavior will make them more likely to continue the good behavior in the future. Some conflicting thoughts I hear in my office by parents are “I don’t have the money to constantly reward my child”, or “Most of my rewards don’t work”. If you are finding yourself with these thought, I would then ask you to reevaluate a few things. Are you presenting the reward immediately, so that the child knows the specific behavior he is being praised for? Is the reward accompanied by positive praise and affirmation? Children respond well to verbal encouragement as well as tangible rewards, so it is essential to include both in the process.

Here are some ideas of REWARDS to try with your child: choice of a game/movie to watch, trip to get ice cream, a dollar/token for point system, special time with a parent/grandparent.

On the flip side, psychology tells us that negative punishment is a behavioral tool that includes taking away a certain desired item after the undesired behavior occurs in order to decrease the likelihood for future undesired behavior. Again, this basically means that parents should enforce consequences- particularly the removal of something the child values, in order to decrease bad behavior. Some parents struggle with this concept and do not feel as if their consequences are effective which leads them to go in circles with their child. A key question I ask in therapy is: How long are you taking away the child’s toy/phone/computer? Research has proven there is a direct correlation with timing and effectiveness of consequences; removing one of these items for too short of a time (1 hour) or too long of a time (2 weeks) can make the child forget what they are being disciplined for. Another essential element of presenting the consequence is the consistency. For example, if Billy gets his toy taken away for hitting his brother one day, but Mom lets him get away with it the next day, there is no consistency to the consequence and he is more likely to continue the undesired behavior.

Here are some ideas of CONSEQUENCES to try with your child: taking away a tablet/phone/toy, removing the child from the situation (time out), taking away future activities (no going to the park/mall).

Another helpful tool I use when working with parents and children is a behavior chart. This allows the specific behaviors to be tracked throughout the week and allows the child to visualize their reward/consequence. See future blog posts by me for more about how to use a behavior chart!

If you feel like your child’s behavior is out of control and need help enforcing rewards and consequences, I would love to help! Give me a call at (256) 258-7777 ext. 104.