Yes, Kids Still Need Positive and Negative Reinforcement

…And particularly ADHD kids. Why should they follow the rules if there’s no motivation or consequence?

Editor’s Note: For the past year or so, Between Carpools readers have been enjoying Avigail’s expertise and engaging writing on the topic of ADHD children. You can read all her posts over here. She’s a powerhouse in the field of helping parents of ADHD children navigate. Since October 7th, her days and life has changed. As members of the chevra kadisha, she and her husband have been busy burying the dead and supporting the broken. She’s been a firsthand witness to the extreme atrocities. We’re humbled by what she has accomplished, and she is one of the true heroes of this era in Jewish history. May there no longer be a need for her holy work. Besuros tovos.
This article was written in the summer and saved for November, when most PTA meetings begin.  

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The PTA meeting began like any other. The teacher told me how thoughtful and friendly my daughter is (I agree!) and then hit me with a barrage of complaints; she walks around the classroom, talks to her friends during the lessons, prefers not to study…you get the picture.  

And then the conversation took a terribly wrong turn. I asked what I thought was a simple and obvious question.  

“How do you respond when she follows the classroom rules and chooses to sit and learn nicely which is clearly difficult for her, because she would way rather socialize with her friends?” 

The principal, guidance counselor, and teacher were speechless.

After a really long, very uncomfortable silence, the guidance counselor tried to address my clearly absurd question. “You see, having an incentive program is way too childish for her, she should follow the rules because she is a responsible person and she WANTS to behave well, not because she is getting rewarded.”

The principal chimed in “I recently explained to your daughter that I must report to the superintendent, it’s part of my job, I feel responsible to do it. She should feel the same way, it is her job to behave and learn and be responsible for her behavior too!”

OK, now I was confused. Doesn’t the principal get rewarded monthly for her responsible work by getting a salary? If she stopped being responsible, she would no longer get rewarded, right? Pointing this out was a BIG mistake.  

I pressed on, probably another bad mistake ☹

“No problem, you feel uncomfortable with an incentive (salary?) program. What happens when my daughter walks around the classroom and stops for a chat with her friend across the way? How do you remind her of her responsibility? Since you have a rule about staying in your seat, is there any response when she breaks the rule?” 

“Oh, we don’t want to go head to head with her!  We remind her to sit down (20 times), she meets with the guidance counselor, we let her go out to get some air…” 

So, in other words, no consequences?

Here’s a nasty yet very true fact. None of us just does well without a reward, either financial, academic, social, spiritual, or emotional. We need inspiration and encouragement. When we are making decisions, we always have to balance different competing values and decide which one is more worth our while.  My daughter along with all of our children must decide daily if they should speak to friends or sit quietly and listen. The friend option has a very high reward with a very minor downside (the teacher doesn’t like it) while following the rules of the classroom has nearly no short-term reward and lots of downsides.  There are students who highly value good grades, and will choose to participate fully in the lessons. Isn’t that where proper, healthy discipline comes in? Aren’t we supposed to help a child make the better academic choice by teaching relevant and engaging material, rewarding participation, and making it not worthwhile to break the rules through consequences?  

Is this suggestion so controversial? 

In addition, most people will get away with doing as little as they can if there is no incentive program and unenforced rules. Think about the situation on our roads. In areas where drivers know traffic cops never visit, many drivers will do as they please and break all the traffic rules. The same rule applies in the workplace. Productivity is lower in workspaces where achievement is not recognized, and no one is checking that employees are succeeding.   

Our kids react similarly to us. It may feel better to have heart to heart conversations with students and explain responsibility, but if there is no positive or negative enforcement, the student will do what is in her best interest.   

If abandoning old-school discipline only led to students not learning very well, that would not be so terrible. But the consequence of a school abandoning the basic rules of discipline and using gentle persuasion and conversation instead is actually quite deviating.  

Most students, knowing the teacher will continually explain the rules but do nothing to enforce them, will undoubtedly break rules. No teacher can absorb this total lack of respect and decorum from her students. Since she has no plan to educate the student to make better choices, she will begin to feel desperate and angry at her students. This leads directly to an out-of-control teacher who yells A LOT! 

Obviously, yelling is a terrible form of discipline because it is way too disrespectful, and it just doesn’t work. The students quickly get used to the new decibel and carry on doing what works best for them. Schools who choose to go with gentle discipline and have decided that rewards work only for the staff but is way too immature for the students, are inviting chaos and a severe lack of respect for both teacher and student.  

Everyone loses when teachers abandon their responsibility to discipline with kindness and respect. 

Here’s how this shocking conversation ended. The school agreed to reinforce one or two of their rules (after asking me for suggestions of respectful punishments), with compliments and consequences and asked me to make a chart.  My daughter, who was invited to join at the end of the meeting looked at me and said “Great Ima, everything was going so well for me! Did you need to help them?” with a huge eyeball roll.

Here’s my question. Why have most schools become allergic to proper discipline, the kind that makes children feel safe, seen and respected and gives them a change to achieve goals that they are proud of? Why have we replaced good old-fashioned compliments and consequences, rules and incentive programs with pep talks and emotional interventions? Are our children doing better or worse with this new system?