Building Compliance

 

Purpose: Compliance Training (CT) is a specific way of increasing a child’s ability to follow through with parental instructions. It is designed to increase chances for the child to succeed at following instructions during created situations in order to increase the likelihood that compliance will increase at other times.

 

Steps: Using CT involves several steps. Below is a description of each of the steps that you must follow in order to increase the likelihood that the training will be successful.

 

• Identify 5-10 simple, 1-step instructions that your child is likely to follow. In order to increase compliance, it is important that your child have chances to successfully listen to instructions that you give and then receive rewards for doing so. Before starting CT, you should make a list of instructions with which your child is 80-100% likely to comply. The instructions can be fun or silly. Examples might include instructions such as, “Go get a cookie from the cookie jar,” “Please clap your hands 2 times,” “Please go get a bowl so I can give you some ice cream,” or “Stick out your tongue.”

 

• Identify 3 times per day during which you can practice compliance. You should identify up to 3 times per day (a minimum of 2) during which you and your child can practice complying for 5-10 minutes. These should be spread throughout the day (e.g., morning, just after school, evening), and should occur at times that you are not in a rush to get other things done.

 

• Identify treats or rewards to use when your child is compliant. In order to make it more likely that your child will complete tasks that you give him/her, your child needs to receive rewards when s/he follows through with instructions. Together with your child, generate a list of small rewards that can be used each time your child is compliant with an instruction during CT. Examples are stickers, stars, 5 cent piece of candy, or hugs & tickles. The rewards may be used separately, or may be put into a “grab bag” that your child can reach into each time s/he is compliant during the exercises.

 

• Explain Compliance Training to your child. At a neutral time, when neither you nor your child is upset, and when your child is not in the middle of a fun activity, sit down with your child and explain the steps of CT. Tell your child what is expected during CT by saying something like:

 

“I’d like to talk with you about something. I want to help you learn how to listen better when Mommy or Daddy asks you to do something. I also want to make sure that you get rewarded for listening. I’m going to help you by practicing listening so that you can get better, and giving you rewards each time you listen. A few times each day, we will have “Listening Exercises.” During those times, I will ask you to do 4-8 things that I know you can do. Each time you listen, you will get a reward. Before we start, I want you to help me pick out some rewards that you would like to earn.”

 

• Start using CT. After you have explained the listening exercises to your child, it is now time to start using CT. At the times you selected, tell your child that it is time to have “Listening Exercises.” Remind him/her that each time s/he listens, a reward can be earned. Then, start by giving a simple, 1-step instruction from the list that you generated. Make sure that when your child is compliant, you become very excited and praise him/her (e.g., “That’s great honey!! I love it when you follow my instructions. Now you earn a reward and I don’t have to ask again.”). Give 4 to 8 instructions.

 

• Generalize gains made during CT to other situations. Once your child is following instructions 90-100% of the time during “Listening Exercises” for a period of a week or more, then you can start generalizing those gains to other situations. To do so, pick one or two other instructions outside of CT to target. Before giving those instructions, tell your child, “I’m going to ask you to do something in a moment. Although this isn’t a listening exercise, you can earn a reward if you follow my instruction just like when we practice.” Then, give the instruction. Make sure that you follow up compliance with excited praise and a reward. As your child is successful with 1 to 2 simple instructions outside of CT, start increasing the number and instructions. Also, start selecting tasks that are increasingly more difficult.

 

• Fading CT. You should continue to use “Listening Exercises” while also generalizing to other situations. When you see a significant increase in your child’s compliance throughout the day (note, no child is 100% compliant all of the time), then you can start fading out the compliance training exercises. Move from 3 per day to 2, and then 1. After you have faded to 1 per day, then slowly remove them on different days (e.g., first on Monday, then on Monday and Friday). If at any time that you start noticing compliance decreasing throughout the day, then reinstate the compliance training exercises.

 

• Increasing the success of CT. In order to make it more likely that CT will result in generalized increases in compliance, several factors should be considered and followed:

 

• Expect it to take some time before significant improvements occur throughout the day. One week of compliance with easy instructions will not necessarily translate to compliance with boring or hard tasks.

• Provide positively stated, direct instructions rather than indirect commands. For example, say, “please clap your hands” versus “Would you please clap your hands?” Children who are noncompliant are more likely to follow through with direct commands rather than indirect ones.

• Make sure that you provide lots of social praise for compliance, both during training exercises and at other times.

• Avoid completing compliance exercises when your child is upset or tantruming, or if it requires that s/he leave a preferred activity, particularly at first. Instead, if either of these situations is occurring at the regularly scheduled training times, simply wait until a bit later when it is better to practice.

• When first using CT, do not provide a consequence for noncompliance. If your child chooses not to listen, simply state that s/he did not earn a reward and move on to the next instruction. Remember, the goal is for this to be a rewarding experience for your child.

• If your child appears to be getting bored with the instructions or the rewards, add new ones and remove some of the old ones.

• When generalizing from training exercises to “normal” instructions, make sure that you continue to use both tangible and social rewards frequently. The tangible rewards can be slowly decreased after compliance has increased to desired levels.

• If gains obtained during CT exercises aren’t spilling over to other situations, or if limited gains are being obtained during the exercises, consider adding a consequence for noncompliance. Examples might include a brief time out or loss of previously earned reward or privilege (e.g., 15 minutes of television time). If you use time out, it should be short (5 minutes or less). Further, the child must come back and complete the original task after the time out is over. Before using any negative consequences during compliance exercises, explain the change in rules and expectations to your child.