Attentional Avoidance –

There are at least three inter-related feedback loops that strengthen the child’s conditioned attentional avoidance of homework.
 

First, over time, due to negative reinforcement, they learn to fantasize sooner, better, and more automatically.  They effectively develop greater protection from the unpleasant feelings they used to get from math.

Negative reinforcement is an often-misunderstood concept.  Unlike common usage, it is not equivalent to punishment.  It is like lying on the beach in the sun until you are very hot and uncomfortable, then terminating this aversive overheating, by running into the cold water.  This temperature change feels good.  This positive feeling of cooling off reinforces running into the water when you become too hot. Therefore, negative reinforcement is the cessation of aversive stimuli. In contrast to the aversion, is experienced as a positive or reinforcing change.

Second, the refinement of attentional avoidance further reduces a child’s awareness of, and participation in, school or homework.  The child eventually begins to slip involuntarily into conditioned attentional avoidance and, as a result, he spends more and more time in his “own little world.” Thus he learns less and falls further and further behind. This brings more negative feedback and thus makes avoidance much more negatively reinforcing. An ever quickening downward spiral develops.

Third, the teacher and parent are shaped into being more demanding and coercive. This happens because the child is usually more attentive for a few moments after an adult intervention, which reinforces the adult’s coercive behavior. This short-term success shapes increasing long-term negativity in the parent’s response to the child, though they usually do not intend this.

The increased unpleasantness of the parent’s responses to the child make avoiding the homework even more negatively reinforcing for the child. This further powers the child’s increasing attentional avoidance. The very efforts of adults to solve the attentional problems make it worse, and thus the ADHD gets worse when adults try to fix it in the wrong way. There well intentioned efforts backfire.

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