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The EasyChild System
Special Software for the ADD/ADHD Child
by Leland Ancier, CEO and Founder of Encourage Software, Inc.
Raising children in today's high-stress world is a challenging endeavor - to say the least. We parents face difficult situations every day, and many like myself have spent hours actively looking for training, experience, or tools to help become more effective parents. On top of this, families with kids that have attention-deficit syndromes or behavioural concerns, which require more effort and patience, face another level of challenges. For many of us, it is not practical to simply rely on parenting as things happen while maintaining a peaceful family life. These parents need to develop and maintain structured, systematic approaches to their child’s needs.
When my own son Brandon’s struggles with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and the behavior problems landed him in a residential treatment facility it was a difficult time for him and for me to witness. I felt helpless when Brandon’s school behaviors started to become problems requiring intervention.
For example, before I realized Brandon had ADHD, he was already creating some classroom problems in school. As a bright student, he would always try to answer first, even when the teacher was clearly calling on another student. This pattern of interruption would cause the teachers to get frustrated and lose their composure resulting in verbally arguing in front of other students.
Brandon was very young and would be constantly getting negative feedback from the teachers and other students. It made it hard for him to feel accepted. He would always blame others for creating the situation. I was very confused by the feedback I was getting. The school would only make contact after things had really gotten bad. They would imply that there was nothing wrong with Brandon, since he could excel academically, he was simply a badly behaved kid – and, therefore, there must be something wrong at home – making me feel like a bad parent.
Brandon started to see a child psychologist, who didn't seem to help. No one thought he had any illness. It was I who finally used the internet to look up information on ADHD. There was a questionnaire and he had seven out of ten signs of the condition. Brandon moved from school to school, hoping the fresh start would relieve the stigma associated with past behaviors and get his life back on track. Each time the problems would resurface. Eventually he tried Ritalin, but the up and down nature of the medication caused irritable side-effects and proper dosing was difficult. He eventually caused such disruption at a small private school, he was asked not to return. Not knowing where to turn, an educational placement counselor was hired who was convinced that he needed residential treatment. I reluctantly agreed, believing at the time that maybe he needed such a drastic step. It was devastating. He was only in fifth grade and was sent 3000 miles away from home. He has no clear diagnosis of anything. The treatment center, used to dealing with much more extreme cases, began experimenting with different medications mostly of the bi-polar nature.
I began to observe how Brandon was functioning in this special environment. The first thing I noticed was, they had a behavior monitoring system at the residential treatment center that was a strict, incentive-based program for meeting goals and preventing unacceptable behaviors (such as hitting). Children were monitored every 30 minutes. The children needed to earn privileges by behaving well over time. The system was very effective for Brandon, but complex and time-consuming and much too burdensome for home use.
Because ADHD typically is not a ‘severe’ behavioral condition requiring heavy therapy or special needs care, my son was able to successfully adapt to the system and truly benefit from the incentive program. As is the case with many ADHD/ADD children, the trick is often behavior management instead of aggressive medical therapy programs.
Different people deal with situations in different ways. After my son was successful in that very structured institutional environment, I knew he would be OK if I could only provide something similar for raising him at home. At the same time, I was tasked with being a single dad for the first time and my son's future was the most important thing in my life. I first experimented with a paper system and it helped, but thought it could be made easier. With my extensive background in developing consumer software, I thought the home computer could be turned into a useful tool. So I created a software program for him. The system had helped him so much, I was amazed at the results. I began to think of all the other families that could benefit from my experience, and I was compelled to make the best parenting software tool available to the world. I focused my life and energy on creating a new system for in-home use. Called EasyChild, the software program was developed in year 2002 and tested for two years.
My son, Brandon, is now on the Dean’s List at a top U.S. high school. He no longer takes medication for his ADHD, has created new friendships, is self-reliant, and is focused upon his budding career as a film-maker after winning awards for his work in this area. The system has worked well, not only for my own family, but also for others trying out the product. Based on the incredible testimonials, the software was packaged into a retail consumer product for launch this year.
The EasyChild system has two important elements at the core of the system: the Point Sheet and the Level Chart. The Point Sheet is used to set up and have points assigned to specific behaviours, such as making the bed every day, or not hitting a sibling, or on-time homework completion. Each action or behaviour has a point value, which can be assigned positive or negative values. The Point Sheet is updated in the software on a weekly basis, and then printed out and placed in a convenient area for everyone to view, such as the kitchen or family bulletin board. Actions are checked off daily on the Point Sheet and a tally is run each week.
The Level Chart comprises a list of privileges or levels a child can strive to achieve. Each level has a ‘treat’ involved, such as a trip to the ice cream parlour. Each level has points assigned to it and when the child secures the required number of points he or she then gets the fun activity associated with that level. In short, this Week’s Behavior Points equal Next Week’s Privileges.
The benefit of EasyChild is that it is applicable to and useful for dealing with a variety of childhood and teen problems. Because the parent typically knows best the areas where his/her child is having a problem, the real benefit comes from its customization features, allowing each family to set its own custom criteria based upon its own needs and belief systems.
Parents of children aged 6-15 who are looking for more structured systems and more free time in their family life are using EasyChild in a variety of ways, including the following scenarios:
- First and foremost, for organizing their child’s weekly tasks and chores.
- Setting up a plan for accomplishing a goal and breaking it down into steps (with point values) to be checked off towards completion of that goal.
- Clearly defining expected behaviours and setting up levels of privileges for rewarding positive behaviour. (For example, Privilege Level A could be ‘have friends over for a pool party’ if 15 points are earned – the equivalent of points secured for making the bed every day. Privilege Level C could be a weekend at a theme park if 50 points are earned – the equivalent of a week full of chores plus a few ‘bonus’ point items that can be earned, such as preparing lunch for school each day).
- Teaching children work ethic and self-reliance, moral values, and socially accepted behaviour problems.
- Teaching children the concepts of savings and budgeting.
- Analyzing behaviour trends using the visual analyzer (deluxe version).
- Teenager-oriented tools include more visual charts and graphs for comparing weekly behaviours, rewards, penalties, or allowance totals (deluxe version).
Parents are reporting positive results in less than a month after using the product. They say the arguments have practically disappeared, and they’re reporting good changes in the ways they interact with their children (less arguments and frustration). Other parents say the flexibility of the system keeps the child from feeling like he/she is in a rigid system, and that the children are even learning to negotiate for items, point values and privileges.
The software targets the millions of parents of ADD/ADHD children who are looking for new solutions with which they can ramp-up quickly, use daily within their own households, and do not cost a lot of money. It is estimated that 6% of kids in the United States are diagnosed with attention-deficit disorders (Source: Newsweek, Sept 2004), and although EasyChild was designed to be comprehensive enough to handle children who had advanced behavior problems, it turns out to be a system that all kids can benefit from and become more successful with. We're noticing that parents without ADD/ADHD kids are also wanting the product because of its 'visual' system for adding structure and letting children know exactly what's expected of them (in terms of chores management, task management, behavior management, and goal-setting). The product teaches self-reliance because the point levels and other 'levels of privileges' must be earned by the child. The parent and child set up the system together, facilitating the treasured act of communications.
EasyChild is also game-like and we find that kids love it. Competition to earn more makes it fun, appealing to our basic human instincts. After as little as three weeks, kids have a strategy shift, they know they can get more by doing more, they know what is expected, and they want to please. Kids even ask their parents for more tasks in order to earn more points and the resulting privileges.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Encourage Software is the third company by award winning software designer Leland Ancier. During Ancier's career he has created over 30 software titles, many of which have won prestigious product awards from PC World, Yahoo and Infoworld. Some of the software applications are still used in everyday consumer and business computer applications. Worldwide, Ancier has sold over 20 million copies of his software products though his previous companies, including Ancier Technologies and Atech Software. In 1993 Ancier was awarded the honor of “Software Entrepreneur of the Year” by INC. Magazine for building the fastest growing software company.
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