Why don rewards and punishments work?
Rewards don’t work because they are usually tied to product, not process. Parents and teachers give some kind of reward when a task is completed. This is often difficult or impossible for the ADD child. They don’t have the skills needed to get there, or the patience to sustain the effort. Rewards just irritate them because the reward is delayed or denied. The main rewards should be at the front end of the project: positive self statements, clean work area, breaking tasks down, skipping a difficult problem (not staying stuck) after a reasonable effort, asking for help appropriately, returning to the task after a short break, identifying positive effort and outcome, filing materials at the end, cleanup, etc. Punishments don’t work because they are a reward- the child is not doing the task. They don’t work because they seem arbitrary and unfair. They don’t work because they teach the child to develop more subtle ways to avoid and undermine the work and the punishment. They don’t work most
