GParents: Terry’s Story of ADHD and Points

At the last GSummit, Samantha Skey spoke about the Millenial Mom and the Power of Collaborative Consumption. The modern parent is as crafty as ever and in the realm of gamification, they are no exception! We’re going to begin a new segment called GParents featuring parents and their systems of gamification they have developed for their children. It is our goal to provide you all with inspiration and ways to make your parenting life easier. Read our first segment about Terry’s story dealing with ADHD:

Terry is a mother of two ADHD kids: Anthony (13) and Jack (9). Anthony always had trouble focusing in school, despite the daily medication he takes. In elementary school, Anthony was allowed to take frequent breaks and walk around but in 7th grade, that isn’t allowed anymore. Classes in the 9th grade would become even longer and a bigger problem for his focus. It was clear to Anthony’s resource teacher that he needed a program to help him focus better. The resource teacher met with Terry to discuss what they could do for Anthony and came up with an incentive program as was once recommended by Anthony’s psychologist.

The two tried such a system before, where Anthony could earn a new video game if he paid enough attention in class. Anthony showed signs of improved motivation and focus but rewarding Anthony a new game each week was not sustainable. What the family did figure out from the experience is that Anthony will stay focused if he is working towards something with videogames. That’s when Anthony suggested that they try creating a system around videogame time for him.

Not only did Terry end up creating an incentive program for what’s important to Anthony, she managed to make it revolve around a point system. The rules of Anthony’s game is as follows:

Anthony would be rated on a scale from 1 – 3 at the end of each class period by his teacher.

• A score of 3 meant that he paid attention and did not need to be prompted to participate
• A score of 2 meant that he was somewhat prompted to participate
• A score of 1 meant that he was not focused and was prompted often

These ratings would add up to a final point total at the end of each day, which determined how much videogame time Anthony could get for the day. The deal was if he got 18 points, (the maximum score) he would get “unlimited” video time.  After that the range was 12-17 points – he got 4 hours – 7-11 points he got 3 hours and below 6 points was 2 hours.  The 2 hour minimum was created because Anthony gets home from school around 3:15 pm Terry could not reinforce the rules until she was home around 5:15 pm.

At first, Anthony was unhappy with the system because he was only earning 3 hours of gameplay. However as soon as Anthony adjusted to the system, he began to earn earn between 12-17 points on average and has even managed to hit the perfect 18 twice so far!

In telling the story Terry said:

“Depending on the total, he was either done for the day or typically had another hour or so to play.  We never punished or had heavy conversations about his daily point achievements.  This was something he could control/impact and he benefitted from the daily results based on how he worked during the day…We were always supportive about his accomplishments because we know he has to work hard to achieve this.”

So there you have it – one mother’s story about figuring out a system to help engage her child. The principles she applied here could be used to approach any system you would want to gamify. Terry understood what was important to her son and developed a transparent system around that for Anthony to progress in. She recognizes that Anthony is spending a long time playing these games but equates it to when she used to spend hours on the phone talking to friends. As she says: “It’s a new generation”.

As forward thinking parents and gamifiers, consider the digital age and context kids grow up in and adapt! If you’re reading this blog then you’re already ahead of the average person in this understanding. Continue to learn, grow, and ultimately play with your kids in ways they understand.

Terry is our GParent of the week for her Point System!

If you have stories of your own about the gamification parenting, please shoot me an email or tweet us at GamificationCo and we may feature you one week!

Image via Leonid Mamchenkov