How to Motivate Children
Last week I discussed the question of whether we should pay kids for good grades and/or punish them for bad grades. I concluded that at the end of the day, what parents really care about is How Do I Motivate My Child?
Motivation is the Million Dollar Question.
As a teacher, once I had put all the other pieces in place to support learning, the biggest remaining question was how to motivate my students to want to learn. (Well, I guess it might have been enough to motivate them to get their work done and turned in on time but, ultimately, I cared more about them becoming lifelong learners).
Actually, this reminds me of something I read recently about being a business owner (where you have to discipline yourself to take action day after day even though there are great chunks of running a business that are of no interest to you—and there is no boss to “make” you do it). The author said the reason you start with a vision—a really bright, clear vision—is because the vision motivates you to take action when you’d rather scroll through Instagram.
Connecting Your Children to Something Beyond the Now
Part of the reason it is particularly hard to motivate children to take action on something they don’t want to do is because children live in the here and now. They simply do not see the value in, say, brushing their teeth or making their bed. They do not have the intellectual capacity to understand that daily teeth brushing is really connected to a long term vision of good health, of looking and feeling vibrant. The do not agree that making your bed helps you to transition to being fully awake and embracing your day. Given their different point of view, why would they want to do those tasks unprompted? (I will answer that question eventually 😉.)
In general, kids are pretty poor appliers. When I was teaching second grade, we used to do Daily Edits. Children would have to find the punctuation and grammar errors in a sentence. The theory was that that would give them daily practice in remembering when to capitalize a word or which end punctuation to use when they went to write something. You know what? Even kids who were good at finding the errors in their Daily Edits still made plenty of punctuation and grammar errors when they went to write themselves.
Connecting Your Children to Something Personally Meaningful
I found it much more effective to have children write something they cared about, like a story or maybe a letter to the principal arguing for an afternoon recess, and then I would put checks in the margin where there were errors. They would go looking for the errors and correct them. If they couldn’t find the error, I could do a quick mini lesson on, say, when to use a comma after an initial subordinating clause. When the piece was polished enough to be easy to read, it could then be shared—read to a classmate or delivered to the principal. THAT was the motivation for applying correct grammar and punctuation—not for the sheer love dotting your i’s and crossing your t’s (That’s for us English nerds).
So how do you awaken a child’s internal motivation to put her laundry in the hamper or pick up her toys when she is done playing with them? You create the vision. Bit by bit, day by day, you build the vision of a happy, smooth-running household—a household in which parents aren’t 100% exhausted and don’t yell or nag or criticize, a household where there is time for warmth and fun and connection because everyone in the household is pitching in and doing his share. You create a world where when children take personal responsibility and contribute to the harmony in the home, everyone feels empowered and capable and needed. THAT becomes the motivation for cooperation (not healthy gums or cleanliness being next to Godliness). Connection and goodwill are powerful reasons to clean up or help out even when you’d rather be on your iPad.
How Do We Apply This Idea to Schoolwork?
As a parent, you have a lot less control over the learning environment and the approach a teacher takes. If you are lucky, your children will go to a school where teachers have some latitude to make good educational choices (rather than being forced to do Daily Edits because the whole district is doing them). If you are lucky, your children’s teachers will always be looking for ways to connect kids to their work personally and directly. At the very least, with luck, your children’s teachers will put so much energy into really connecting with who your child is as an individual, that that teacher will have some goodwill built up when she asks your child to have patience for engaging with something he really isn’t interested it, trusting that at some later date the skill will be needed.
At home, if homework is going to get done in your house, you can take a similar approach—connect your child to a greater vision: Perhaps the vision is as simple as, “When you’re done, we can play Monopoly.” Perhaps the vision is “Your handwriting is getting to be so legible. Grandma is going to really appreciate that when you write her birthday card.” Perhaps the vision is “I know spelling is really challenging but soon you are able to at least spell well enough for spell check to do its job: Then you are going to write faster and with a lot more confidence!” For a long time (unless your child goes to an exceptionally child-centered school), you are going to provide the motivation for your child to do well in school. Over time, the more you connect your child to a vison that has heart and meaning for her, the more that vision will become her own. In that way, you help your child develop her internal motivation, rather than using external motivation just to get things done.
Why External Motivation Doesn’t Work
Wouldn’t it just be faster to bribe your child with money or treats or screen time? Yep. It sure would be faster. In the short run. Just like yelling can get your children to spring into action right now, giving your children external rewards will serve to get a child to sit down and finish his work as fast as he can. Tonight. Maybe even tomorrow. In the long run, however, studies show that incentive plans (like paying for grades) do not work. When they do work, there is usually an internal motivation present as well. The child who consistently studies hard for a promised reward is likely actually working for an internal reason like wanting her parent’s approval or fear of disappointing her parent. In the absence of an internal motivation, the child will need ever increasing rewards to be motivated (If I do my homework, I get a cookie and I get 30 minutes screen time).
A great start to motivating your kids is connecting their internal needs, wants or dreams to a vision that can drive and motivate them.