inability to learn from consequences

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Forum -> Parenting our children -> Our Challenging Children (gifted, ADHD, sensitive, defiant)

Inability to learn from consequences

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amother ↓

Sun, Sep 23 2012, 10:24 pm

my 7 yr old has never been able to successfully learn from her prior experience.
CIO, as a baby, never worked b/c she did not end up learning from experience that she shouldnt cry. every night was like the first one all over again.
this theme has continued all her life, where punishments or consequences would never be a deterent to repeating the behaviour.
I have always been baffled how she just didnt get it.

recently I read in a book about ADD about how one symptom of ADD is the inability to learn from consequences. and I suddenly felt validated. my confusion all these years was real. she really doesnt know how to learn from experience, its a real symptom.

I dont know if she has ADD or not, and its not my primary concern, since she is coping well enough regardless.

my question is just if anyone has ever heard of this symptom before? and if there is anything else that could be causing it?

↑ amother ↓

Mon, Sep 24 2012, 9:55 am

Bump
Anyone know anything about this???

zigi

Mon, Sep 24 2012, 10:16 am

punishments don't always work time out for xyz. I thought that consequences would work better. if forget coat will be cold etc?
so how does one work with a child like that?

gryp

Mon, Sep 24 2012, 11:16 am

Yes, of course. My 9 yr old son with sensory processing disorder was like that a lot until recently. It's very very tough to discipline a child like this.

granolamom

Mon, Sep 24 2012, 1:41 pm

I have a teen like this, been like this from day 1. its insanely frustrating. even the natural consequences dont seem to help this kid learn from past experience.

mandksima

Mon, Sep 24 2012, 3:20 pm

Yup, I've got a child like this. It probably is related to the difficulty with organizing thoughts, such as with ADD. I think my child can understand the consequences logically now in terms of remembering a moral of a story that she read but it doesn't apply to her own life - she has an incredibly hard time with thinking things through before acting as it is part of lack of impulse control. If she thought beforehand, perhaps she would remember a negative outcome of a similar act and not repeat it, but the impulse is too strong and she only regrets afterwards.

FranticFrummie ↓

Sun, Sep 30 2012, 5:38 am

mandksima wrote:

I an completely relate to this. My Dd has impulse control issues. For her, the perceived reward is always much more important that the potential consequences. To her, the reward is concrete, while the consequence is very abstract. She's been stepping on bees all summer long, but do you think she'll ever put on her shoes before running on the lawn? O heck no! She's even quit crying about the stings - I think she sort of enjoys the sensation. shock

She hates wearing shoes, and there's only a chance that there might be a bee out there.

If that's not a skewed way of processing information, I don't know what is. Confused

ReallyRosie ↓

Sun, Sep 30 2012, 6:06 am

My Adhd daughter also has this issue. Her brain is just going way too fast for her to consider consequences - and as a baby, CIO defintely didn't work either. There are definteley a lot of "baby symptoms" that I'm now realizing were part of the whole Adhd package.

I've been blogging about it here, if anyone is curious...
http://adhdhome.wordpress.com

↑ FranticFrummie

Sun, Sep 30 2012, 7:22 am

ReallyRosie wrote:

"Husband on the stoop" made me LOL so hard! I had to sign up to follow you. Great writing!

Are you on LiveJournal? That's where I document all of the hilarious insanity with my Williams Syndrome daughter. PM me and I'll add you to my friends list if you're on there. (It's totally private, complete lock down to keep the trolls out. Wink

)

↑ ReallyRosie

Sun, Sep 30 2012, 8:15 am

Thanks for the compliment :-)... No I'm not on Live Journal, but I'm excited to check out your writing. We need a good bunch of laughs, with all of our daily insanity. It's the only way to cope. I'll PM you.... and chag sameach!

imasinger

Sun, Sep 30 2012, 8:54 am

I am bookmarking this blog. Thanks for sharing!

↑ amother ↓

Fri, Oct 05 2012, 12:13 am

Ds has always been like that too. I never understood why he couldn't learn from his mistakes, why time out was completely futile, etc. It was explained to me like this by his psychologist:

If the problem is purely behavioral, then it would make sense for a person to change their behavior based on negative consequences. However, when the problems are due to impulsivity (such as with ADHD) obviously, learning from your mistakes won't help, because impulsivity bypasses the thought process. Being impulsive meals you act without thinking. Therefore, it doesn't matter what you did in the past, you're not thinking.

But it impulsivity does not necessarily equal ADHD. There are a number of other reasons that could be at the root of the symptom. Fortunately for you, your child is old enough to be evaluated for most reasons behind this and you don't just need to wait and see if they'll grow out of it and you can deal with the problem head on. (I've been struggling for years and they keep telling me they can't test him until he's 6 or 7...)

↑ amother

Fri, Oct 05 2012, 12:25 am

As a teacher I often get to hear all about how children don't get the concept of cause and effect. My belief is that it can be taught. ABA works with this philosophy of children learning based on what their past experience has been. Very often what's wrong is something that's being done by the adult. For example, when leaving a child to CIO you have to make sure you never do go in, don't give the child anything that can be rewarding to them. If you're worried about your child's ability to grasp this concept aside from getting your child tested I would recommend talking to a professional about exactly what it is that you've tried to do and how you've tried doing it.

Amother for this as this just gives ot too much information about who I am Smile

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