Is Your ADHD Child Always at Fault?

Many parents believe that they should punish their child when they misbehave at school. It has been shown that punishment is not an effective way to change a behavior or get a child to do what you want, especially in children with ADHD. When a child misbehaves, natural and/or logical consequences are the best way to address the problem and to investigate the behavior to understand what precipitated your child’s behavior. In school, many children with ADHD have impulsive or poorly thought-out reactions to negative events, such as doing poorly on a test, being hurried, being bullied, teased, or provoked.

Some examples of natural and/or logical consequences are:

• Getting a low grade for homework that is late.
• Not being able to play video games because s/he broke the controller.
• Being asked to leave a friend’s house because s/he was misbehaving.
• Not receiving his/her allowance because chores weren’t done for the week.
• Not having clean clothes to wear because s/he didn’t put the dirty clothes in the hamper.

Image courtesy of Clare Bloomfield at www.freedigitalimages.net.