Thursday, October 22, 2009

Measuring Behavior

How do I measure my child's behavior, when I am actively working to improve it? It seems easy enough. Either my child is listening and following directions without sulks, sighs, or eye rolls or she is disobedient and unruly, while creating more messes for me to clean up. Perhaps, but measuring my child's behavior can be more complicated than that.
First I can decide which behaviors to measure. With an ADHD child, I'll want to measure behaviors like listening and following directions, thinking before acting, staying reasonably calm and still, and general mood relative to the situation. I'll also want to offer warnings to control these behaviors and measure the responses. If my child gets few warnings and responds to them by changing behavior, that is good behavior. If she needs frequent warnings and doesn't heed them, that is not so good behavior. During each activity in the day, I can keep track of the number of warnings and responses and accurately measure how well she is doing. It's better than using my own mood as a barometer, which is inaccurate and drags me down.

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