The Dopamine Loop: Helping Kids Connect Effort to Reward
Let’s start with a brief exercise:
I want you to consider a food that you often crave. Something that you always find yourself going back to, whether it’s a meal, a snack, or a treat.
Mine?
Pretzels. Soft or hard, on their own or with a dip, I am never not in the mood for pretzels.
What did you come up with?
Chances are, your choice fits into one of the following categories: sweet, salty, fatty, or some combination of all three. Take a walk down the snack aisle of any grocery store and you’ll find that these are the most consistently produced/sought after flavors. Why might that be?
Aside from the obvious (they’re delicious), this is because our brains have been hardwired to seek these flavors out because they have historically been connected to necessary nutrients.
Sweet foods are generally high in carbohydrates, which are an excellent source of fast energy. Many naturally sweet foods (honey, berries, etc.) also tend to be high in essential vitamins and antioxidants.
Salty foods encourage electrolyte balance, which is essential for nerve health, muscle contraction, and hydration.
Fatty foods are higher in calories than protein-heavy or carb-heavy foods, and this energy is more easily stored in the body, making long stretches without food a bit more bearable. Fats also aid in the absorption of essential vitamins.
It’s no wonder we are so drawn to these flavors; they communicate to the brain that the body is getting what it needs and leads us to crave these foods more frequently. This is due to the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that plays a key role in the brain’s reward and pleasure systems.
The problem? Humans have gotten really good at creating foods that trigger dopamine release, but don’t actually provide the health benefit. After all, why spend hours foraging for berries when you can feel just as much satisfaction by eating a spoonful of sugar?
Neuroscientists refer to this phenomenon as reward decoupling: when the brain’s sense of reward gets disconnected from the things that truly meet our needs. Rewards that we are wired to seek out no longer reliably lead to a beneficial outcome.
And it’s not just food.
Our need for connection, novelty, and information have led to the development of the internet, which can do a phenomenal job at meeting those needs, but can just as easily send us into spirals of isolation, addiction, and misinformation. Have you ever caught yourself doom-scrolling (aka indulging in media that makes you feel worse), yet you cannot seem to pull yourself away? This is partially due to the dopaminergic drive to seek the reward, even though the reward is no longer fulfilling.
To add to this, dopamine has been shown to respond more to the pursuit of the reward than to the achievement of a reward. In other words, it drives you to seek something out, and once you obtain it, you want more.
In short, dopamine exists to motivate us to meet our needs, but if the sources we seek do not lead to a valued, fulfilling outcome, the brain can get stuck in a loop of pursuing pleasure without satisfaction.
This poses a pretty significant challenge for adults, whose brains are fully developed and are therefore more capable of self-awareness and self-control.
But what about our kids?
The prefrontal cortex (majorly responsible for things like self-awareness, impulse control, and planning) is not fully developed until age 25-30. Yet the dopamine system is fully online from birth. As a result, kids are highly susceptible to reward decoupling.
They seek pleasure and avoid pain, without fully understanding the emotional context. You might see that excessive screen time or sugary foods lead to a crankier child, but all they know is “this feels good right now”. You might understand that spending 10 minutes cleaning their room is worth the effort, but all they know is “I don’t like this”.
So how can we break this cycle? By systematically recoupling effort and reward.
I say “systematically” because it does not need to happen all at once. Rather, focus on small instances in which your child can experience some frustration, discomfort, and effort in order to achieve a goal. Then, reflect on the joy of achievement and highlight the strengths that were exercised in the process.
Let your child know that you noticed that her creativity helped her finish drawing, even when the colors she wanted were not available.
Tell your child that the patience he practiced when he waited 10 more minutes for a snack was seen and appreciated.
When your child wants you to intervene and solve a sibling conflict, validate their frustration, then reassure them that they are capable of working toward a solution.
The idea is to positively reinforce effort by not just acknowledging the outcome, but the process.
When kids experience effort followed by reward, they can develop resilience and enjoy the fruits of their success. They can experience both perseverance and pleasure. The dopamine becomes a reward for something meaningful, rather than empty stimulation.
Can we (or should we) eliminate every shortcut to pleasure?
No. It is important for kids to learn self-regulation and this can only be done if they are exposed to situations where they can practice balancing effort and reward. There are times where it is entirely appropriate to pursue something that is fun or enjoyable simply for the sake of fun and enjoyment. We don’t want to punish joy in an effort to reward effort.
Instead, we can teach balance, tolerance, patience, perseverance, and self-awareness.
When kids successfully navigate frustration, they gain access to a heightened sense of self-esteem and confidence. They are able to reflect on what they truly value and pursue those things, rather than simply pursuing stimulation and pleasure.
They learn that effort feels good because it leads to something that matters.
Your role as an adult?
Provide safety and connection as your children navigate frustration, discomfort, disappointment, and boredom. Support them as they struggle, but don’t disempower them by eliminating growth opportunities. Identify and point out their strengths. Be proud of them, even for the little things. Be a source of external security that they can lean on while they develop their own internal security. This is how resilience grows.
