Using a Home-School Report Card with Your ADHD Child

Now that school has started up again, one of the most important things parents can do to help make it a successful year for their child is to carefully monitor how their child is doing each day at school.

An easy and effective way to do this is with something called a "home-school" report card. This is simply a little chart that makes it easy for your child's teacher to provide you with feedback each day on how your child did in key areas (e.g. completing work, following class rules, etc.). Based on how your child does each day, he or she will earn "special" privileges that afternoon/evening after school (e.g. t.v. time, computer time, getting to stay up 30 minutes later, etc.).

Here are suggested guidelines to follow in developing and using such a program. (Note: This program is most appropriate for elementary school children, and needs to be adapted for use with older students.)

1. Discuss the plan with your child's teacher: Cooperation from your child's teacher is essential for this to work as he/she needs to fill out the ratings each day. Explain that you are trying to carefully monitor how your child is doing each day at school and that this will give you the information you need without requiring a lot of time from the teacher.

2. Decide what behaviors to target: This should be done with input from the teacher. The idea is to focus on 2-3 key areas that the teacher feels are most important. Examples of behaviors you might target are: completing assigned class work"; following class rules", treating peers with respect, waiting turn before talking. The idea here is to identify a few important areas that your child is having trouble with and where improvement is necessary. Don't try to focus on more than 2-3 things at a time and make sure they are stated in simple, straight forward language.

3. Decide how your child will be "graded" for each item: Each day, your child's teacher will provide a rating indicating how your child did on each item being targeted. The rating system I generally use is a simple 1-5 scale where "1" indicates a very poor job on the specified behavior; "3" indicates an "okay job" and "5" indicates a "very good" job. Each day, therefore, the teacher would assign such a rating to each behavior that is being targeted.

4. Make up the daily rating forms that will be used: This does not have to be fancy and can be as simple as the outline below:

(SAMPLE DAILY RATING FORM)

Daily Ratings for: (Child's name)

BEHAVIOR........................RATING (CIRCLE ONE NUMBER)

Completes assigned work 1 2 3 4 5

Awaits turn before talking 1 2 3 4 5

Treats peers with respect 1 2 3 4 5

_____________________________________________________________

Note: 1 = very poor; 2 = poor; 3 = okay; 4 = good; 5 = very good

____________________________________________________________________

You would give your child's teacher a supply of these forms so she can complete one each day that your child brings home. As you can see, this should not take more than a minute or two. (Editor's note: there are also forms you can download to use for this.)

5. Discuss the plan with your child: It is very important that your child understand that this plan is not intended as a punishment but, instead, will provide him/her with the opportunity to earn extra privileges for doing a good job each day at school. You need to make sure that your child understands exactly what is expected of him/her to earn a good score in each area being targeted. In other words, using the sample chart above, what does he/she need to do in order to be given a score of "5" for "treating peers with respect". Ideally, the teacher would explain to your child the reason for the ratings that were assigned each day. Your child also needs to understand what extra privileges he/she will be able to earn each day after school for doing a good job, and what score needs to be achieved to qualify for these rewards.

Your Child Needs to Succeed

It is important that your child is successful with this program early on. If not, children can quickly become discouraged and lose interest. I might thus start out by requiring the child to earn a total of nine points to receive their daily reward. This would mean that the child achieved an average score of three (or "okay")on the different items, which is presumably an improvement over what had been their typical level of behavior. Once this score is being earned consistently, you may want to require a higher score in order to earn the reward, but do not set the standard so high that your child is unable to achieve it with some consistency as this can quickly result in a loss of interest and effort.

These are the basics to consider in implementing this simple behavioral plan. This system can be helpful because it provides you with daily feedback about how your child is doing in important areas and provides your child with short term incentives for good behavior. It also requires very little time from your child's teacher. Here are some other things to keep in mind when designing and implementing this program:

The more input your child has in developing this program the better.

It is good to get your child involved in setting the goals to work on as this can get him/her thinking about their behavior in a serious way. Also, letting your child have input into the daily rewards they are trying to earn (e.g. t.v. time, computer time, getting to stay up 30 minute later, etc.) can help them become more invested in doing well.

Consider a long term reward as well as daily rewards for good scores.

(Note: Some parents have concerns that a program like this is simply "bribing" their child for things he/she should do anyway. I do not think this is the case. If your child is behaving in a more mature and cooperative manner, shouldn't he or she have access to privileges that would otherwise not be available?)

Try to keep this plan on the "top" of your child's mind.

It is a good idea to remind your child each morning before school what behaviors they are working on, what they need to do to earn a good "score" and what reward they are working to earn for that evening and end of the week. If the teacher does this as well, and gives your child feedback about how he/she is doing as often as possible during the day, this will also be very helpful.

Try to keep your child interested in the program.

Parents often complain that their child with ADD/ADHD shows initial interest in a program like this but soon loses interest. This happens as children with ADHD tend to become bored with things quickly.

The best way to work against this is to frequently praise your child for doing well and setting things up so he/she can be successful. Remember, don't make the standards too high starting out—if your child is not able to earn the rewards on a regular basis they are unlikely to work harder - instead, they will probably just lose interest.

It also helps to rotate the rewards frequently so your child is always working to achieve something different and new. This takes some effort and creativity but is important to try.

If you are not already using a program similar to that described above, this can be well worth giving a try. If it does not seem to be working for you, then consulting with a child psychologist to figure out how to modify the plan to be more successful would be advisable.

Remember, just like medication is not a "cure" for ADHD, either is a behavioral plan like this. Most parents find that this type of plan is helpful while it is implemented, but once it is stopped, the child's behavior often returns to how it was before. The goal of this type of program is thus to help manage a child's symptoms more effectively, and expecting this to provide a long term "cure" is, unfortunately, an unreasonable expectation.

This article was originally published in ADHD News, which was published by Brandi Valentine and is now archived at www.adhdnews.com. Dr. David Rabiner is a child psychologist and Senior Research Scientist at Duke University.and produces a monthly online newsletter, Attention Research Update, that helps parents, professionals, and educators keep informed about new research on ADHD. To sign up for a free subscription, please visit http://www.helpforadd.com.

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