Behavioral therapists for kids are the worst and some of them think they're social scientists. These kids are treated like little experiments. The food reward thing is interesting since our generation is the first to have masses of crap food products around us all the time. So maybe for our parents generation, their parents would only be able to use rewards when it was available, not very often. But in the 90s you could throw dozens of little debbie's at a kid for only a couple dollars. I had the same experience and never managed to learn a better coping skill. The junk food is more expensive now but you can still do a lot of damage with $5.