How to motivate 5yo impervious to incentives!

[ph73nt]

Hi mums!

My 5 year old's head teacher took me to one side yesterday. My son is bright, but reluctant to do school work. The school have run out of ideas to encourage him. He doesn't respond to sticks or carrots. She asked us to encourage him at home.

The thing is we have the same problem at home. If he doesn't want to do something it is incredibly difficult to get it done and often doesn't happen. He seems impervious to any kind of incentive and doesn't really care about punishments. Here's an in-exhaustive list of things we've tried...

Carrots:
-You'll get a treat (sweets) if you do something: "I'm not bothered about sweets".
-We'll go somewhere you like if you do something: "I'm not bothered about that"
-You'll get a reward for that (say a toy)... guessed it, yet? "I'm not bothered".

Sticks:

• You'll go to bed early if you don;t do that: "OK"
• We'll take this toy off you if you don't do that: "OK"
• You won't get to go to somewhere you like: "OK"
• You'll go without dinner: "Goody!"

I should add that our threats are never empty threats; they are always followed-though. We always talk him through why he is being punished and check he understands. He gets well praised when he is good. We prefer carrots but they are rarely effective.

I'd really appreciate comments from anyone who has experienced something similar - particularly if there is a positive outcome.

thanks.

I wish I knew the answer. Our nearly 5yo DS has so far resisted our (and school's) attempts to get him to stop lashing out at people.

We've had a look at [http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Explosive-Child-Understanding-Chronically/dp/0061906190/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390574608&sr=8-1&keywords=the+explosive+child the Explosive Child] approach of collaborative problem solving. Too early to say whether it's going to be effective, but others seem to have found it helpful.

Good luck!

Proper link: the Explosive Child

Many thanks for the link. The book preview is very telling - I'm going to download it onto my Kindle this evening. Hoping it will help us with our definitely "inflexible" son.

Thanks IsItMe- I have also purchased together with '10 Days to a Less Defiant Child'!!

Hi OP, I'd be interested in how you find these books. My DS 6 is just the same but also has no interest in clubs or groups we have tried. He's a lovely soul but has a very negative attitude to anything unless it was his idea. Treats or punishments have never motivated him. Slightly at a loss too

Does he have an achilles heel, something that he really likes? My ds1, also 5yo, loves angry birds. He is allowed 30 minutes of computer time a day, after his supper, when he can play it, or the lego city or cbeebies games that he likes. He's generally pretty good but if he does mess around he gets docked playing time, or sometimes earns an extra 5 or 10 minutes. I imagine you've tried all the 'carrots' you can think of but thought I'd mention it anyway.

Just wondering if anybody found the magic answer yet? [hopeless optimist]

We're a bit all over the place, and struggling to know how to handle the physical violence while trying the collaborative problem solving.

mummyxtwo our DS also loves screen time. But we've got to the point where it feels more like a punishment for us to dock it, as we're desperate for the 30 minutes' peace...

In our borough there's a programme offered through the children's centres called Move with Me which is to do with tuning into your child through movement therapy. We have just started it and it's 10 weeks. Might it be worth asking your local family centre?

School has now got DS on a new plan after some advice from the council behaviour team. He's sitting at a desk instead of joining in the usual reception hurly burly, and coming home at lunch for now, with gradual introduction of time with other children. He's certainly done much better at school since they've introduced this - no children hurt for the past two days, which is a massive improvement.

It's apparently what they would do (on a more permanent basis) for children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders. Although they're saying they don't think he has ASD, we're waiting for an assessment with a paediatrician to check for any underlying health thing. The behaviour team also has language and learning expertise, and they think that there's no delay on his language generally, but there could be something about his ability to express and read emotions. So his lovely class teacher is having to exaggerate her cross and pleased reaction faces. They've also recommended a complete separation between managing behaviour at school and at home (so we've scrapped our sticker chart at home which was for good behaviour at school, and stopped going in to help out with reading for now).

Might be worth googling "your council name" and "behaviour" to see if they have a team which can advise the school? None of this is intuitive or what the school would normally do for a child with no additional needs (but the school have not seen anybody quite like our DS before either!).