Rewards and Habit Building for ADHD Kids and Adults
Bribes for everyone! Especially me
Before I had kids, I would clean the house in between episodes of whatever TV show I was binge-watching at the time. If the episodes were long I’d pause the show every 20 minutes or so and do some task - dishes, laundry, vacuuming etc. I felt a really strong motivation to get done what I needed to get done so I could get back to whatever I was watching.
I can’t remember when I started doing this, but I also remember using this strategy in college to get work done - 20 minutes of schoolwork followed by a piece of chocolate, a YouTube video, or a couple pages of a fiction book. It’s basically the pomodoro method but the break must feature something I really genuinely want.
Basically, for as long as I remember, I have had to bribe myself to do things I want to do and I know are good for me.
When I explain ADHD to people who don’t know a lot about it, my quick definition is that ADHD is a deficiency in the brain’s reward system. The ADHD stereotype many people have is of a child who can’t pay attention in class bouncing off the walls - the emphasis in most people’s minds is the hyperactivity, the outward signs that are noticeable in some ADHD folks, especially children. But what’s going on internally - for me anyway, and something I’ve observed in my children, is that things that should be inherently rewarding aren’t.
I’m not sure how the neurotypical brain works with rewards, because obviously I have ADHD so I’m not neurotypical. From what people have told me, there’s no consciously recognized brain party every time you do something. There’s simply less resistance to doing something they know needs to be done.
Even though I’ve experienced this directly myself, I have to put effort into putting myself in my ADHD child’s shoes. When your kid resists some chore, or some kind of behavioral goal (“no speaking harshly or rudely” is our current behavioral challenge) it’s so easy to be frustrated and it feels so much like they are just willfully trying to make your life harder.
However, I have found that over the years, behaviors have improved enormously via what probably many people feel is bribing (basically something like, “if you can speak gently and kindly today, you earn 30 minutes of screentime tonight”) or something.
The way I use this is honestly a bit like classical conditioning. Associate the positive behavior with the reward, so that even in the absence of the actual reward, the brain associates the habit as positive, and it gets done anyway.
For example, my elementary-aged kid (who has combined-type ADHD) started out in kindergarten resisting getting out of bed and getting dressed in the morning. I offered a reward - if you get out of bed without arguing and get yourself dressed, you can listen to whatever music you want on the way there.
I had to remind her daily of the reward she would get for the behaviors I wanted to see. I did also have to show her the reward wasn’t something she would have without the desired behavior, which was hard - one day we ended up almost an hour late for school because of the meltdown she threw when she couldn’t listen to the music she wanted because she refused to get dressed. That was a hard day.
But now, years later, my daughter gets up more or less immediately for school and is dressed before I am - and she even does this on weekends. The habit was built and reinforced through the reward. She still gets to listen to whatever she wants on the way to school, but there have been days my phone was dead or for some other reason we had to listen to the radio on the way, and all was well (a ton of work on flexible thinking has allowed this to happen, but that’s a story for another day).
I don’t want to be like Aunt Petunia offering to buy Dudley more presents to avoid a massive tantrum. And I have never made a reward like that - like, “if you calm down, you’ll get x”. To me it seems all that would do is teach the brain that melting down gets rewarded as long as you reign it in a bit at the end there.
But reminding the brain of a planned and consistent reward for getting something done or improving some problem behavior feels different. It doesn’t feel like “buying” good behavior. It feels to me like just a substitute for the inherent reward system that should already be there, but isn’t working properly in the ADHD brain.
It’s hard to imagine a life where I didn’t have to bribe myself to get something done I want to get done. So now I get to go listen to a podcast because I sat down to write this. Maybe I’ll also look for some chocolate. At least I’m earning my bribes!