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If you are an adoptive family who celebrates Christmas, do you use it as a behavior modifier? One of my friends has adopted a sibling group of three. While the children have been in this adoptive home for four years, they were actually adopted 10 months ago. She uses a credit and reward system similar to the one I use to modify unacceptable behavior. I have included the form and instructions that we use in some recent blogs, so you may be familiar with the system. Her system also involves losing presents, whether they are for birthdays, Christmas, Easter, or one of the various other commercial holidays. She begins with a set number of presents that each child will receive, for Christmas that number is 10.
Approximately a month before the anticipated celebration, the children are warned that the consequence of unacceptable behavior will be losing a gift. The children have been known to scream at her in public using many colorful words, drawing the attention of anyone in the vicinity. This behavior will usually result in a lost gift. One of the children has already lost all 10 Christmas presents and another child is down to two gifts. The children who have lost gifts are given a choice. They may still attend the celebration and watch the other children or they can stay in bed.
I am curious what you think about this form of discipline. Do you think it is too harsh? What if future behavior is modified after only doing this one time? Was it worth it if it worked?
We used to take the whole family to Dairy Queen once or twice a month. There was no set schedule so the children couldn’t pinpoint the date and time. Sometimes, if a child was really naughty and lost treat for that night, that would be the night we would go. The naughty child would watch the others eating their delicious treats. While it seemed mean, and my ice cream never tasted as good on those occasions, it was very effective in changing behaviors.
Is removing gifts in the same category? I confess that as of today I have not purchased Christmas gifts for two of my children. Their behavior has been especially naughty for several weeks and I just can’t get in the mood to choose gifts for them. I have purchase several family gifts this year, which they will enjoy as much as everyone else does. Therefore, I can’t say that they won’t receive anything.
Modify the Behavior of Adopted Children by Using Rewards
Does Your Adopted Child Lack Impulse Control
Photo Credit Julia Fuller 2006
Julia –
Well, if the children are of the sort that seem to learn from consequences, this will fall into the drastic-but-effective, tough-love category of disciplinary tactics. Honestly, if you are hateful to your brother, why should you even Want any gift he might have chosen for you?
However, what about the child who rarely seems to learn from consequences — will he/she benefit at all from this action?
I have a friend that informed her teenage foster son that Nothing — not one piece of candy, not one pencil — would be opened on Christmas morning, unless there was Something From Him for each person in the family. She said it took a forced march through WalMart and the painful spending of His Own Money, but he finally managed it.
So perhaps holiday gift-giving is an opportunity to teach something like Reciprocity in Relationships (specific), as opposed to Better Behavior (general)?
Rachel
Julia,
I have to be honest, and say that my first thought was, “how cruel!” If a child asked for something expensive, a tv, gameboy, bike, etc. and did something bad enough to warrant them not receiving that special gift, that would be one thing. However, to lose all of their Christmas presents? I think it is over the top to exclude children from family holidays. If the family chooses to celebrate the holiday by giving gifts, then all of the kids need to receive gifs.
Another thing…What if in September, 6 yo Brandon broke his brother’s favorite toy, stole money from dad’s wallet, and got suspended? That child would lose no gifts, as there aren’t any around that time. Just because it’s december, should 10 yo Joe lose his gifts for cussing at his mom, not picking up his room, and getting detention?
Ha! My three would be good as gold as long as they could see visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads. Then, the day after, they would do something really squirrelly. Only goes to show that they don’t really have an impulse control problem after all!
I understand the Mom’s frustration at her son’s behavior. I think Bumble hit it dead on. Why should bad behavior at Christmas result in such a drastic consequence, but the same behaviour any other time gets regular treatment? Exclude the child from the holiday celebration? Does she want the child to become part of the family or not? I think the mom needs to get a serious handle on her need to even up with the son, she has gone off the deep end. What are those gifts anyhow, rewards for the child’s subservience to the Mom, or something a whole lot more important than that? Scraps, I would get the same results you talk about, once the goodies are in their hands, back to the old behaviors. John
I have one son that I’m having a very hard time buying for this year. His behavior is such that I feel like gifts at Christmas would reward him in some way for that behavior. I don’t think this strategy would work with him one bit. He’s much too determined to be the victim, no matter how much his behavior affects others. I don’t think giving him nothing would be a good idea though. I want to demonstrate forgiveness to my other “healthy” children and if I have to do this on Christmas – well, what better time? We’ve all gotten into the habit of giving this many gifts or spending this amount of money and it’s not supposed to be like this!! I would tell your friend that she needs to simplify her gift giving to a family gift or one gift per child or something instead of trying to use this as behavior modification. Of my six adopted children, I don’t think more than one or (maybe) two would end up getting anything if I did this – and I would feel so wrong to do this.
Again, if it actually works, great – but it doesn’t sound like it’s working so well already.
John, what you said is interesting: “Exclude the child from the holiday celebration? Does she want the child to become part of the family or not? … What are those gifts anyhow, rewards for the child’s subservience to the Mom, or something a whole lot more important than that?”
At our house, the problem is that the child experiences a gift as something a whole lot LESS important than she should. I see the person, their effort, the time and care they took to think of, shop for, wrap and deliver the gift. We discuss this as we do the same for others. Of course, I’m an adult, but even her siblings (younger and older) feel and understand the Relationship behind a gift. YES, we want her to feel or BE part of the family — but somehow she doesn’t know how yet. And NO, I don’t see Christmas gifts as rewards for subservience, but as ways of sharing love with one another and with friends and relatives. Joy seems to feel almost none of that. Gifts seem to have whole lot LESS meaning for her — somehow they are experienced primarily symbols of power. She never seems overly happy or excited when opening a gift — a big UNDERreaction is what we have come to expect.
So I think lmg1567 is right about simplifying our holiday gift giving — we have tried to scale things in our family Waaay Baaack. The kids receive perhaps one “big” gift each, and stockings, and group gifts, like games and puzzles to share. Their lives are full of enough junk as it is, and relatives and friends are always very generous. I would much rather give shared experiences as gifts. This Sunday is the performance of the ballet school which Joy used to attend, and I hope to take her, as a surprise. Afterwards I can roll up the program from the performance and put it into her stocking, along with a note saying how nice it was to enjoy it together. So it’s a gift she gets to open early, and it’s one she gets to (or has to) enjoy with Mom.
Rachel
Some disagree with me (including some of my sisters), but I give gifts to the people I love because I love them. Not because I want to manipulate them. Manipulation is such a nasty word when our kids do it to us, but somehow it’s OK when we do it to them?
I also think this is a pretty desperate reach for the mom who apparently can’t find any other way to teach her children to behave. In bio kids, perhaps this is fine. But for kids like ours who are impacted by trauma or neglect or abandonment, it’s just one more time that somebody sticks in their face that they’re just not good enough, they’re losers. Not a message I want to send to my kids anytime, but especially not at Christmastime.
Rachel, I agree that IMG is on to something. Keeping the gifts within reason is appropriate, something I will try to do this year. One of the things we do as parents is to model appropritate behaviour, such as, giving a gift to celebrate something or to simply say ‘I love you’ even though the child may not reciprocate. It is long term modeling, an immeadiate correct response from the child would be nice, but isn’t expected. Limiting the amount of modeling is appropriate, but are we dong our job if we simply throw up our hands and say ‘Well foo on you if you still can’t do it right’? John
John -_
I sincerely struggle with whether modelling appropriate behavior is getting us any further than the foo-approach. And I arrive at the conclusion that the modelling is important to the kids who WILL learn from it — and to myself. I guess we really don’t know WHAT kids are learning, until much later. That’s one reason I come here — to hear from parents like you who are much further along this road.
Honestly, sometimes I feel like the biggest fool around, for NOT learning from the repeated, consistent consequences I experience. Not the sharpest pencil in the box, evidently. I want to do this job Smarter, not Harder . . . but in this career Smarter seems to get me nowhere. — Rachel
Hi Rachel. It would be so nice to have a manual that would give us all the right parenting that would work with OUR kids. The advantage of doing this for quite a few years is that you do get down the road feedback, some of the things that never seemed to take did get absorbed, but the kids are kind enough not to let you see that until they hare grown and gone. John