No concept of reward or punishment

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Forum -> Parenting our children -> School age children

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amother

Olive

Sun, Jan 03 2016, 8:07 pm

How do you deal with a child that has no concept of reward or pubishment?
I say you have 5 minutes to get dressed and then you can play. Child procrastinates, so I remind, there are only 2 minutes left. Finally time is up and there is no playing time so child gets upset for a few minutes then receivers and totally forgets.
This can repeat itself with a reward or consequence always with the same result.
What can I do?

MagentaYenta

Sun, Jan 03 2016, 8:08 pm

How old is she? Children have difficulty visualizing time.

amother

Olive

Sun, Jan 03 2016, 8:17 pm

6 years old. And there is always a clock there and I say now it's 615, you have until 620. Child does have a concept of time.

amother

Silver

Sun, Jan 03 2016, 8:40 pm

I am an adult and I have no concept of time.
The clock has numbers on it. Unless I am staring at the clock the whole time, I have no idea what 5 minutes passing feels like. Or an hour. You know how some people can estimate what time it is throughout the day without looking at a timepiece? I have no clue and sometimes barely recognize morning from afternoon.
Needless to say, I have clocks and alarms all over my house that I am constantly checking.

Rutabaga

Sun, Jan 03 2016, 8:48 pm

Maybe a mechanical timer that counts down (like this) would be more productive?

amother

Olive

Sun, Jan 03 2016, 8:54 pm

It's not just about time. I gave that as an example.
I can say clean up your room and you can have a snack. Room won't get cleaned up, will have be upset about no snack for a nanosecond and move on.
There is a routine followed every morning in school ending with homework prepared on the desk. All those ready get a reward. Teacher says DC never gets reward because DC just wastes time and knows will lose out but doesn't care.

lk1234

Sun, Jan 03 2016, 8:59 pm

keep in mind that the concept of reward and punishment is VERY difficult for some children to absorb and they need MANY MANY practice runs of getting consequences for them to learn it. You could be doing everything right and your child may simply need time to grasp this concept. Don't blame yourself but just keep teaching him by giving consequences and at a later time sitting down and telling him when you did that then this thing happened to you- in the future you may want to do differently so a better result happens. This idea is extremely hard for some kids. I have 1 child out of a number of children who simply does not get this and over time I have seen improvement by staying loving but consistent and then following up later when all are calm to talk about how things can improve in the future.

seeker

Sun, Jan 03 2016, 10:34 pm

Some thoughts in no particular order:
1. I'm not sure how your pointing to the clock proves that the child has a concept of time. Especially at such a young age and with the general issue you're describing, I can almost guarantee that time is an issue which she may or may not just grow out of.

2. Often children like you're describing need to see and feel the positive reinforcement in order to really integrate the message. As long as they just keep missing the treat/reward/whatever, they may be upset but the message kind of goes over their heads. They may even decide the reward-giver just doesn't like them. Go out of your way to give them a few tastes of success, talk about it heavily, and then see if they are any easier to motivate. for example, HELP her get dressed in the 5 minutes and then talk enthusiastically about how much fun she's having with the extra playtime. Do this a few times but the next time you can say "REMEMBER how great it was when we had extra time to play [game] after getting dressed? Let's do that again!" and help her do it again. Try gradually giving over the reins to her and see if she seems to "get it" any more. See if the teacher can get something similar going in school - at 6 years old there is probably a teaching assistant who can be asked to help your DD for a couple of days so she can experience getting the reward and understand what it takes to get there.

3. This kind of thing also often involves a focusing issue. It goes together with the time thing because "get dressed in 5 minutes" begins with the child thinking "ok, I have a whole 5 minutes, I don't need to start right away" because they have no concept of how short 5 minutes is, and then it continues with the child losing focus of what they were supposed to be doing. Try using a visual cue as a reminder.

4. Since time seems to be an issue in most of the examples you're giving, you can try just removing the time limit which may be a distraction. That doesn't mean there isn't any time limit, just that you're not necessarily talking to the child in terms of time. Instead of saying "you have 5 minutes to get dressed" (foreign language: 5 minutes) you can say "Extra play time if you get dressed right away without stopping or doing anything else."

5. That's for the short term effect. You can also build the concept of time by working the other way - instead of setting what seems to the child like an arbitrary time limit, you can count up - "Let's see how quickly you can get dressed" with a stopwatch or on the clock. Do this for a lot of activities so she gets a sense of how much time things take. Because that's what time is really - the numbers on the clock don't mean anything, it's about how much activity can fit into a given time span. Once she knows from a lot of repeated experience WITH talking about it that getting dressed actually takes 5 minutes, she may be more ready to learn that when you say "get dressed in 5 minutes" there is no time to waste.

southernbelle

Sun, Jan 03 2016, 10:58 pm

Some children can internalize better when things are visual. With one dd with executive function issues, we made a simple flow chart explaining expectations and what would happen if they were met or not met. She had an easier time "seeing" it rather than "hearing" it. AND also went over it lo b'shaas maiseh

amother

Olive

Sun, Jan 03 2016, 11:02 pm

seeker wrote:

The examples I gave were time based but time is definitely not the core issue.
Positive reinforcement works as a one time thing but that's all. If DC will do something the right way and be rewarded for it I can refer to it again later on with no effect.

amother

Olive

Sun, Jan 03 2016, 11:03 pm

southernbelle wrote:

This sounds interesting. Can you share more details please?

southernbelle

Sun, Jan 03 2016, 11:17 pm

Keep it simple according to the age. You write out the trigger - mommy says get dressed. Then two arrows - one to get dressed nicely 》》》》》cookies in the lunch box. The other said not dressed right away 》》》》》 no cookies. That works on the reward and punishment part. When issuing the trigger of "mommy says get dressed" it must be with eye contact and a gentle touch, not called from the next room. I gave one warning that time was ending. We had some tears on the failure days but it helped with self regulation after a while. Only work on one or two routines at a time.

Also we were very successful with a visual schedule, aka to-do checklist with pictures. This dd has mild auditory processing issues so visual/written instructions are needed to supplement verbal instructions when she is mastering new skills/routines.

amother

Olive

Sun, Jan 03 2016, 11:19 pm

southernbelle wrote:

Thank you. I will try something like this

southernbelle

Sun, Jan 03 2016, 11:27 pm

Olive, hatzlocha!

amother

Olive

Sun, Jan 03 2016, 11:49 pm

southernbelle wrote:

Olive, hatzlocha!

Thank you. I'll try to remember to update you in a few weeks.

5*Mom

Mon, Jan 04 2016, 3:45 am

I don't think there's anything wrong with your child. Rewards and punishments are conveniences for parents and teachers so you're finding it frustrating to parent your daughter because you can't get her to do the things you want her to do. She does the things she is motivated to do and doesn't much care about rewards or not getting rewards that other people think she should care about. Your daughter sounds refreshing to me.

Don't waste your time and energies *training* her to perform for treats. Get to know your daughter and find out what motivates her internally. Build your relationship with her and that, at the very least, will serve as a powerful anchor and help her do the things that you want/need her to do even when she may not want to.

For learning more about better parenting methods, I highly recommend all books by Alfie Kohn and specifically Unconditional Parenting and Punished by Rewards.

amother

Olive

Mon, Jan 04 2016, 10:13 am

5*Mom wrote:

Thanks. I will look into getting the books.

Fox

Mon, Jan 04 2016, 10:54 am

5*Mom wrote:

Don't waste your time and energies *training* her to perform for treats. Get to know your daughter and find out what motivates her internally. Build your relationship with her and that, at the very least, will serve as a powerful anchor and help her do the things that you want/need her to do even when she may not want to.

I can't "like" this advice enough!

I have a DD (now a young adult) who is fiercely independent. I can't help but think of her as a cat in a world of dogs. Even before she could articulate it, she found the notion of rewards demeaning, and you can just imagine all the conferences I went to with teachers and administrators who were shocked (and a little insulted) that she didn't respond to all their charts and stickers and whatnot.

Try to keep the big picture in mind when you're dealing with the routine frustrations: kids who operate on a unique set of priorities will drive you crazy when it comes to getting out the door in the morning, but they are also likely to be the most creative, focused, and interesting people as adults.

southernbelle

Mon, Jan 04 2016, 1:57 pm

With respect to the point raised by fox and 5 mom, not all kids fail to follow through because of independence and self assertiveness. I have a different one who fits that mold.

But when a child who wants to please cant get it together to do what is expected, maybe they need more overt teaching of these skills and behavioral supports. This dd would fail to acheive prizes in the classroom and cry and act out - not because she didnt get them, but because she had no clue why she didnt earn her prize. It was a complete mystery to her. Thats the world we live in and it was very hard not understandbg the rules.

IMO, a child who wants to be compliant - but can't -deserves help and structure. Otherwise confidence takes a nosedive. B"h the problem has faded to minimal as she has aged. Those skills are still hard for her but she manages much better and without the frequent rewards now. Also, during this process we let her choose the rewards and even sometimes how to structure her flow chart so it made sense to her.

musicmom

Mon, Jan 04 2016, 2:24 pm

Sounds like you have a creative and engaged child. If you let her help more with the scheduling, maybe she will be more likely to follow through. If you let her know what needs to get done and she decides when to do those things... sounds like she doesn't like to be told what or when :-)

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