How to develop self motivation in children?
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Funz:
DS is a different story. He only started learning a month ago as I could not get the teacher to fit him into her schedule. He needs to do finger exercises and is not playing full songs yet. As such he does not find it interesting. I am not pushing him yet, just 5 mins is all I am asking of him and he will do it. But need to nag him into it. I am hoping that as he progresses, he will be more motivated.
Hi,
For fear of going OT, I'd PMed u abt this & would like to hv ur advice.
Thanks! -
Chenonceau:
[quote](1) How old is your child, and gender?:welcome: Tisha, sounds good to me! Hope I can help some... I know how you feel because just before I took my son over from Grandma's care... he was like a big stone. Push very hard, move little bit. I left out some questions though...
(9) What is your child's least favourite subject? How does he approach it?
(10) What is your child's teacher like?
(11) How is the relationship between the teacher and your child?
(2) What is the child's personality?
(3) What is your personality/or the personality of the primary caregiver?
(4) What is your child's favourite activity? How does he approach it? How did he start?
(5) What is your child's favourite subject? How does he approach it?
(6) Describe in as much detail as you can, how you get your child to work at home.
(7) Describe your child's siblings (personality) and their approach to school.
(8 ) What are your child's grades like?[/quote]Thankyou very much for willing to help. Hope more parents benefit by your tips/advice.
Here are the answers to your Qs.
Lets call him Pip(instead of me saying my DS and you saying your DS) so that it is easy to refer for both you and me.
Pip is a 12 year old boy. He is in P6 this year. He confident, easy-going and of inquisitve and exploring nature. He is smart but lazy.
I would describe myself as a warm, friendly person who is also an optimist. As a parent inspite of being strict on discipline I share a very close and open relationship with my child. He can easily confide in me and knows that I never scold for being honest(whatever the offence!).
Pip's favourite activity is reading. I used to take him the library when he was 2 year old. He love to read so, do I. If left to his own devices, he could easily while away the whole day on his bed reading his favourite books(even if he is reading it for the nth time).
If I have to pick a favourite subject, then it would be English I guess. He is more willing to do the english assesment/past exam papers. Next would be maths. How does he approach it - with mild reluctance. Basically he is vary lazy when it comes to studies.
Pip's least favourite subject is Mother Tongue. He finds it too difficult and always chooses to do MT homework last and makes enough excuses to avoid any extra revision. It is really uphill task to get any MT revision done.
Pip is the only child.
Currently his grades range from 70s-80s.
The current form teacher(continued from P5) is great. She is capable of disciplining the students in a rational way without resorting to screaming and scolding all the time. Is competent at teaching her subjects well. The maths teacher even though has excellent teaching skills is not very patient.
One comment I constantly hear from teachers is that Pip goes into a dreamworld in class. He does not pay attention.
Chenonceau, I've sent you pm with more details. -
Busymom:
This is always an interesting topic for me. I am currently reading a book that has been strongly recommended by Tamarind in this forum: 好妈妈胜过好老师. It is a good book and I agree with many of the pointers written by the author. I haven't finished the book, however, I also wonder if the author has not been just lucky that her child is intelligent and matured even as a baby... GWIM?
Is there a english translation of this book? I can't read chinese?[quote]
I have a girl and a boy (younger). Both their personality and strengths/weaknesses are so different that what works on one does not necessarily work on the other. I constantly think if it is the gender that is causing the difference (e.g. boy more interested in playing with cars than in reading books), as in girls mature faster than boys or are stronger in languages (although he is more matured in some ways and did better in his tests than her at the same age in the same chinese enrichment class), or because he has some inborn issues that I am not aware of (can read \"this\", but cannot read \"This\" or vice versa in the Peter and Jane book), or because I have spent relatively less time with him as compared to his sister...? So, he is still very much a work-in-progress. He likes us to read to him (both English and Chinese books), but we couldn't get him to read aloud for us at all. Any pointer on how we could \"motivate\" him to read aloud on his own? The only book that we have tried to get him to read aloud is the Peter and Jane book. And even that, we usually have to \"bribe\" him with something, like watching Dora for instance.
As for my girl, my biggest challenge is to get her to practise her violin everyday. In her book, the author of 好妈妈胜过好老师 wrote that we should not force our child to do what they do not like. Well, does that mean that if our child does not like to go to school or attend a class, we just let it be? When it comes to music, maybe it is alright to let go, but a line has to be drawn somewhere. It cannot be that each time the child doesn't want to do something, we just let her. She wants to learn violin, but she is lazy to practise it everyday. Should I threaten to stop the lesson if she doesn't practise? Or should I incentivise her daily practice (like half an hour of practice will get her to read her favourite book)? I have gotten angry with her, gotten angry with myself, hugged and praised her, whatever. Still can't get her to practise constantly without my nagging or reminders. Am I expecting too much from a child?
There are others, but let's start with these 2. Any ideas, greatly welcomed. :D[/quote]That will completely defeat the purpose, isn't it? Self motivation is not about dangling carrots, is it?
I cannot offer your any tips but can completely empathaise with you? Dunno which trick to pull out of my bag? :? -
Hi... there is one obvious one that I will share now. I will slowly think through the other possibilities but maybe tomorrow cannot log on. Anyway, this needs some thought. Let's address the issue of LAZY.
To begin, let me familiarize you with the notion of self-concept. Your self-concept is your definition of yourself. Are you lazy/irresponsible/playful etc... Research shows that people are motivated to behave in a manner consistent with their self-concepts. If your self-concept includes the notion \"lazy\", then you will behave accordingly.
You could try to re-design your child's self-concept. This is easier to do when the child is 2 or 3 but it is not too late for Pip. More importantly, it is urgent. Pip can be easier helped if he stops believing he is lazy (that is... I am assuming he does... this may not be true).
Self-concept drives behavior. It exerts a subtle but very powerful motivating force. I will not go into the hows and whys here. To illustrate the power of self-concept, here is a story.
Humanities People Can't Handle Math
I know a group of girls selected to enter a special class called the Humanities Programme. As the name suggests, the Humanities Programme offers an advanced curriculum in the Humanities subjects such as Literature, History and Geography. Collectively, the class was known as the “HP Girls”, with an emphasis on the “H” for “Humanities”.
Thanks to this label, the girls saw themselves as good at the Humanities and bad at Math. “That’s why we’re called HP, you see. We’re not supposed to be any good in Math. We're good at languages.”, they explained to their Teachers when the exam results at the end of Secondary Three were analyzed. The HP Girls had collectively managed to rank last of all the classes in Math.
The Teachers couldn’t make sense of it because to make it into the Humanities Programme in the first place, the girls had to be good in Math too. When they were picked from the Secondary Two cohort, the individual girls were all at the top of their respective classes – or close.
The poor Math Teacher for that class that year must have gotten a heart attack because a class of talented girls had dropped all the way to the bottom of the heap in Math. What’s more, the Math teacher was one of the best the school had, and a terribly conscientious one too!!
In early Secondary Four, the Form Teacher went in guns-a-firing at the notion that Humanities students are not supposed to be good at Math. He showed them the analysis of their Math results in Secondary Two and Secondary Three. He confronted them with the flaw in their logic with incontrovertible evidence, and asked a question the girls had no answer. “How come, all of you were did well in Math for Secondary Two if you’re all supposed to be Math Idiots?!” he boomed from the height of his small head on wide shoulders and a beefy body.
The Math scores at the end of Secondary Four went back up to where they were supposed to be. You see, people behave in a manner consistent with their self-concept. Hence, be wary of the labels you or others attach to your child.
Possible Step-by-Step to Self-Concept Redesign (please adapt the steps according to situation)
(1) Keep a watch out for behavior that illustrates \"diligence\". No child is 100% lazy. You stalk the kid enough, you will catch something that you can call \"diligence\". (2) Catch diligent behavior and describe it clearly in the form of effusive praise. Feign surprise. \"Wow! You are diligent!\"Pip is too old for labels alone to work. You need incontrovertible evidence of his diligence that you can show him. So stalk him and catch them. Then show him.
(3) Repeat this often. Catch more diligent behaviors.
(4) Talk to him and say that no one is born lazy and that somewhere inside there is a little boy who knows the value of hard work. See that dim spark of diligence fire left ... and bring it out into the open so he knows it's there and the whole world (Grandma and Grandpa etc...) can see it's there.
(5) Believe in him and from the light in your eyes, let him find the passion to believe in himself.
For Mommies with Toddlers
For parents with younger children, you may wish to note that little children do not have a defined self-concept. You are the the Chief Architect of their self-concepts.
Your child believes what you say of him. They are not at an age where their psyche is strong enough to deny the negative self you show to them, if you decide to do so. If you say the kid is naughty often enough, and you pick up on naughty things often enough, you design the notion \"naughty\" into his self-concept. It's a bit like showing a baby a reflection of himself with horns drawn on his head. He believes the reflection of himself in your eyes. It is never too early to begin to design elements of the self-concept that predispose the child to academic excellence
- intelligent
- diligent
- likes to learn things
- determined
- not afraid to fail -
Chenonceau:
Hi ChenonceauSo sorry to have made you wait Tisha. I have not had time to log on till now. I have been distraught about my son's SA1 P5 Math paper. He scored 90+ in P4 last year but can only manage at most 40/60 in Paper 2 of the practice P5 SA1 papers. I've been quite miserable, and he has been working so hard and has been so brave that I feel like I should bring him to Canada and apply for citizenship... just so that I don't feel like I have consigned him to child labour (like those children in brick kilns).
Also, I rather think that I have been quite stupid to have put my professional reputation on the line in a public forum such as this. Firstly, I dunno where to start. I can't possibly put down close to 2 decades of consulting experience in motivation here. I don't know where to start. Secondly, psychology is an imprecise science and whatever I write is bound to have its detractors.... and some are more rude than others. So... I am a bit nervous.
As such, please forgive me for sketching some preliminaries as means to protect myself
No Strategy Works in Every Situation
Many parents know that what works with one child in one situation, won't work with another. What works in one family won't work in another. Motivation recipe strategies need to be developed for specific situations. This is important to note upfront because there will be those who will say \"I tried this, and it doesn't work\"... \"I tried that, and it doesn't work\".
In some situations I would suggest setting IMPOSSIBLE GOALS.
In others, I would suggest TOO EASY GOALS. In some situations, I would advocate allowing failure to happen. In others, I would say that failure is to be avoided. There is no magic bullet just as there is no magic food. Green tea has been touted as good and healthy but in some situations it leads to an overgrowth of intestinal yeast and results in candidiasis of the gut.
Motivation Strategies Carry No Value Judgment (for me)
It is all too human to pass judgment. We all do it. Such and such a strategy is good/bad. Such and such a food is good/bad. But as a researcher-consultant in human motivation, I approach strategies and foods without trying to judge good/bad. I merely note their observable effects. Coffee is universally acknowledged as bad for health. Nonetheless, people with gallbladder problems can reduce their incidence of gallbladder surgery by 28% by drinking 4 cups of coffee a day. Coffee has that effect. It also has other more well-known effects.
Something is good/bad/right/wrong only with regards to specific situations. As such, please forgive me if I refrain from participating in any longdrawn debate about whether or not a strategy on its own is good/bad/evil/saintly. I'm also not keen to go into the realm of BELIEFS. What readers believe is well and good. Debating what I believe and what you believe is unproductive. Strategies have observable effects or not. They have positive effects in some situations and nefarious ones in others... and sometimes the same strategy has both good and bad effects in the SAME situation. Hence, this is not meant to be an esoteric discussion about beliefs and faith. It's just about strategies with predictable EFFECTS in specific situations... without any attempt at judging the moral value of any strategy.
Simply, if the forum reader's beliefs/values/emotional experience lead him/her to conclude that some of the proposed strategies are bad, it is entirely the forum reader's prerogative.
Situational Diagnosis
I need to know Tisha's situation in more detail. And even then, I would advise caution and some thinkthrough on Tisha's part because I am trying to structure a solution without ever having seen the child, nor observed first hand the interactions between mother and child. Tisha, no one knows your child and your family better than you. Hence, take this as sharing... and hopefully the sharing stimulates some thinking about your situation and helps you see it more clearly. And then, you can experiment carefully.
[/b][/u]
Tisha, I hope you don't mind that I got you into this. Do let me know if you're not keen to post this publicly. We can work through PM. And sorry ah.... everyone, I'm just trying to prevent a situation where I might be flamed/negatively judged for sharing. I kinda feel like I am putting my head on the block for people to chop off.
Also, next week will be somewhat busy so I may not respond so fast... but I will respond. As long as I am not flamed for sharing in good faith what I know and have done, I am happy to help other Mommies.
Always appreciate reading your perspective in this forum. It's like getting professional advice from a trained psychologist for free.
I'm most impressed by your humility in acknowledging that there's no absolute, but situational. The same method may work for 1 person, but not another. So many factors can come into play.
Let me share something that's probably more within your area of expertise. When I started working as a fresh graduate, I was heading a team comprising of men twice my age. They've been working there from since the time I was born. I've tried various ways to motivate them, sending them for courses, empowering them, giving them opportunities to handle more challenging work etc. But they're not performing and the younger staff follow suit. They got away with it because in those days, the company just don't fire or give warning for poor performance. The dead wood just got carried along.
I left the company after about 3 years to head a department at a foreign firm. My management style was still the same, but my team members' performance were totally different. Most of them were older than I was, but they had no problem accepting my leadership. They went out of their way to support me, including dropping what they were doing on a weekend to rush back to office when my bosses from overseas were in town and I needed some information at the last minute. We were able to make do with less staff than we had budget for and in return, I was able to promote some of them quickly and reward them with very good bonus. Those without degrees were able to move on to jobs normally opened to degree holders with several years of experience, with very good salary - more than what they could imagined possible with their qualifications. All of them told me they would never be able to get to where they are if not for me.
With the economy restructuring and management changes, most of my staff in my first company lost their job subsequently. Most remained unemployed for a long time. Some called me to ask if I was hiring.
To this day, I'm still wondering if I could do anything different for this group. But the corporate culture is making it difficult. The good performers don't get rewarded sufficiently while the non-performers get carried along for a long time to the point where there's no incentive for them to work hard. And I suppose I was also the wrong person to be their boss. They cannot accept a young girl with no working experience as their boss (and it didn't help that I was looking more like a 10 year old than my actual age). To make it worse, I was a lot more successful in my business development role which generated a lot more work for them than they were used to previously, and for which they don't get rewarded.
I really don't know if there's any motivational strategies that would work for people who has no interest in what they're doing but is there only because they need the salary. What do you think? -
Chenonceau,
The self concept you just shared sounds like what a US clinical paychologist was telling me. He practises in the US, but does a lot of work in the war torn S American country of El Salvador. -
Chenonceau:
Thanks Chenonceau, I'll work on this.Possible Step-by-Step to Self-Concept Redesign (please adapt the steps according to situation)
(1) Keep a watch out for behavior that illustrates \"diligence\". No child is 100% lazy. You stalk the kid enough, you will catch something that you can call \"diligence\". (2) Catch diligent behavior and describe it clearly in the form of effusive praise. Feign surprise. \"Wow! You are diligent!\"Pip is too old for labels alone to work. You need incontrovertible evidence of his diligence that you can show him. So stalk him and catch them. Then show him.
(3) Repeat this often. Catch more diligent behaviors.
(4) Talk to him and say that no one is born lazy and that somewhere inside there is a little boy who knows the value of hard work. See that dim spark of diligence fire left ... and bring it out into the open so he knows it's there and the whole world (Grandma and Grandpa etc...) can see it's there.
(5) Believe in him and from the light in your eyes, let him find the passion to believe in himself.
-
Where can I get 好妈妈胜过好老师 and is there an English version as well? Thanks.
-
Chenonceau,
Thank you for the detailed post. things to keep in mind for every parentChenonceau:
So true , children are so intutive in sensing what we think and are so greatly affected by it - even though we dont say it in words...(5)
Believe in him and from the light in your eyes, let him find the passion to believe in himself. -
KSP:
Where can I get 好妈妈胜过好老师 and is there an English version as well? Thanks.
As far as I know, no translated English version as yet.
I ordered mine from :
http://product.dangdang.com/product.aspx?product_id=20464285&ref=search-1-pub
My friend borrowed a copy from our local NLB.
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