How to develop self motivation in children?

[tisha]

Chenonceau:

Tisha...

Assumption 1: Pip has a dead engine vis-a-vis Math
Assumption 2: Pip has a flat battery vis-a-vis Math

The normal way to start a car is to turn the key. The normal way to ignite self-motivation is to give choice... a true and sincere and respectful choice, as I have suggested in busymom's case above. If the child chooses something of own free will, and says it, self-motivation is ignited. It may be a small, and not very powerful ignition, but the engine is on.

However, if Pip has a flat battery, we have to bypass the key and the battery and jumpstart the engine. Then let the engine charge the battery.

In such cases, we DO NOT GIVE choices. You see now what I mean when I say there is no one size fits all. Sometimes, giving choices will work. Other times, it won't. In this case, if my assumptions are accurate, Pip will NEVER willingly choose to do Math. Hence, we have to FORCE A GOAL... (right, I can already hear people fall down in a dead faint at the notion of such an evil act as FORCING a child to do something).

However, when a goal is forced, you need to choose a highly manageable, almost TOO EASY goal. This is not the correct time to use IMPOSSIBLE GOALS. There is another vastly different situation for that. Tell your child that you don't care what school or teacher says and that success is defined by you, and how happy you are. My DS is poor in Chinese so I told him \"Success is defined by me, not your marks. I will tell you what is Success in Chinese. You follow me, and success will come. I promise.\" Then you set easy goals like…. complete 4 problem sums a day and get them right. Then it is up to you to research and choose the sums that are easy enough to solve. When he solves them, CELEBRATE.

Ok... I am NOT sure success will come but I am too chicken to tell my son that. If I have no hope, he also won't. Even if I have no hope, I pretend to have it so that he can feed off my hope.

Point noted. Need to remind myself often.

Chenonceau:

Try not to reward with a toy or money. Both are touchable, feelable THINGS. These things stimulate good feelings that are too strongly associated with the thing. You want to create a general mood of happiness that can be associated with MATH. If a touchable, seeable toy is present, it will attract the association, and then you will not succeed in building up positive feelings toward Math. Hence, try to use intangibles to create the good feeling... hugs, praises, your own pride shining from your eyes (go put eyeliner and make your eyes SHINE) or a shared game of Monopoly replete with giggles and tickles. You want your child to be self-motivated at Math, you need to get your child to FEEL positively about Math.

I create these feelings in my son for Chinese by (1) squealing loudly at every cheem phrase he has mastered (2) telling him “Whoa! You so smart! I’m so IMPRESSED by your knowledge of Chinese. Mommy is a Chinese Idiot (and a Math Idiot). Thanks for teaching me something!!!! Man! I am impressed!”

I do that somethimes. We try to solve a math problem together, and sometimes I deliberately fail to solve it. And finally when he beats me to it, he is jubliant. Good to know, I'm on the right track. Will do it more often.

Chenonceau:

Create good feelings of joy and pride by setting (1) easy goals and (2) celebrating their achievement.

Face it, motivation is not about being rational. If people were rational, why does char kway teow with plenty of lard sell so well? Motivation is about FEELING that you wanna do something. No sense telling the kid roadsweeper stories or stories about poverty. This appeals to LOGIC. Only the rare person is all logic. Most people are DRIVEN by feeling. The operative word is “drive”. Just try and set up experiences and associations that convince the child he is good at and likes something a bit, and you will see some drive.

Tried that before. The effect is very short lived. And if I keep repeating same or similar stories often, I'll only sound like a broken record.

Chenonceau:

Once you have given your kid enough feelings of success, consider that there is a spark of fire already. THEN, you start to allow him to choose. His battery is no longer flat. Every time your child chooses a math activity and does it, it strengthens his commitment. Commitment is necessary in any endeavour that involves self-motivation.

It may help to set subordinate goals (i.e., small goals that add up to large one) at the start. These goals have to be specific. Example, 4 problem sums a day or 10 MCQ a day.... every Monday and Tuesday. This sets up a routine. Humans are creatures of habit. Once a routine is in place, there is less resistance to the various activities within the routine. You may not have powerful motivation, but you won't have resistance.

This should be enough to occupy you for a while eh… Tisha? Do be sure to adapt advice to your situation. If you feel that something I say won't work, it probably won't. You're the MOMMY, I'm only a so called \"expert\". Mommy knows best because Mommy knows the situation best. Motivation strategies only work when applied to the right situation.

Feel free to adapt/reject anything in this post because if I am wrong, I don't suffer. You do and your child. I have been wrong before to the detriment of clients and I don't feel good about that.

I kinda reckon that the beginning will be very difficult. You are trying to light a spark where there was no spark... sometimes there is a spark but it doesn't catch and the fire goes out quickly. You have to try and try again... and be very patient.

:thankyou: Chenonceau.

[Chenonceau]

rosemummy:

I'm not sure if it's universally true that paying people enough money is sufficient.

Hi hi... is it the same video you watched 'cos my video says that paying people is insufficient to motivate them? Can I clarify that that is what you meant?

[Chenonceau]

tisha:

:thankyou: Chenonceau.

You're really :welcome: Tisha. You're a P6 parent and I am a P5 parent. I know how urgent your issue is and how important it is to resolve it so I am happy I can help even a little bit.

[wonderm]

Chenonceau,


Thank you for sharing! It was really a pleasure to read and learn.

I seem to be able to motivate my boys but I won’t be able to put down in words so well as you.

My ds1 didn’t do very well for P5 SA2 and I tried to help him in P6 to prepare for PSLE, I was using exactly your method "success is defined by me and you WILL BE successful by just following me". I wasn’t really sure as that was my first encountering with PSLE myself but as an adult, I had to sound confident. Again like you suggested, I worked together with him with very small and achievable goals. Half way through, he started to gain confidence and felt good about how he was doing. I still remember one day before his prelim, he asked "am I really going to be ok if I just carry on doing this way?" I reassured him. The entire process of getting ready for PSLE was almost stress-free and enjoyable and the bonding between us certainly improved.

The good news is that he did do well and got into his dream school. He is in Sec 3 now, much more indepedent but he still values my advice and consults me often about school work and other activities.

To me, the best way to motivate a child is to break down big goals into small actionable tasks and be there to help him achieve them if possible. Simply saying how important is PSLE or give general remarks like "you must work hard", will only make the child feel stressed or feel like giving up.

[tisha]

Vevey:

Just to share an experiment that I just did on DS1 (P2) here...


He is expected (by his teacher) to memorize his Chinese Show & Tell script & to make matter worse this time, it is abt his fav story bk. Based on teacher's guidelines, it's more than just summarising the story, but to add in all the why he likes the book, the character etc & what does he learn from it etc...

I did an experiment on him after working on the script w him last week. This Mon, I gave him the edited script & told him to familiarise himself w it. He was not motivated & could only read it in a bored voice w numerous errors.

I was not free on Tue, so no progress on his end either.

Then this a.m, I sat him down & show him on a calender that he had exactly 12 days to practise & perfect it. I broke the script into 6 more or less equal portions & advised him to learn 1 new portion a day w revision on previous day(s)' work. Then, hopefully by 7th day onwards, we have 6 more days for polishing his speech & handling of props etc. I also need to buffer for busy/non-productive days.

He was quite worried abt not having enough time & not being able to memorise it but I gave him my assurance.
True enough, abt 5min of memorising e 3 lines later, he was able to give a good & expressive recital & was v pleased w himself.

Hope he can keep this up!

Vevey,
Sometimes the kids are just overwhelmed by a huge task which puts them off totally. I think it was a great idea to break down the task into manageable portions.
:celebrate:

[Chenonceau]

rosemummy:

It's not that there's no punishment for undesirable behavior. In fact, it's a well-oiled bureaucrecy with very well laid out precedures for such cases. There's even a department with about 10 people to just look at the process and update the rule book. Unfortunately, the practice is otherwise.

I suppose that is as good dun have... could you possibly have created your own RIVP then? One of my clients was in roughly the same situation. She found her own way to muscle the fellow (about 50-ish and stubborn and underperforming Head of Something) into an early retirement. Everyone else shaped up after that. The big headache left. She promoted others and transferred others in... culture changed... organisational energy went up and KPI improved quite a bit.

I guess there are some crossovers to parenting because whichever the branch of psychology, you're still reading and drawing components from the same body of basic research. Tee hee! RIVP is RIVP no matter if you're caning or sacking someone.

It's interesting that you raise the issue of crossover. I'm sorry I didn't think of that. Too focused on helping Tisha with her P6 child... I suppose the idea we can transfer over to children is that punishment does have its place in our panoply of strategies to manage children/staff. We may not like it. It seems evil. But sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. If my client hadn't managed the person out... so many others would have suffered, and some who would have suffered would have been innocent and needed help. After all, it WAS civil service.

If we don't RIVP our kids, then they mayn't grow up right, and then we do them a disservice.

There is no need to over use such awful measures but they have to be available and used properly when absolutely necessary.

[Chenonceau]

tisha:

Vevey:

Just to share an experiment that I just did on DS1 (P2) here...


He is expected (by his teacher) to memorize his Chinese Show & Tell script & to make matter worse this time, it is abt his fav story bk. Based on teacher's guidelines, it's more than just summarising the story, but to add in all the why he likes the book, the character etc & what does he learn from it etc...

I did an experiment on him after working on the script w him last week. This Mon, I gave him the edited script & told him to familiarise himself w it. He was not motivated & could only read it in a bored voice w numerous errors.

I was not free on Tue, so no progress on his end either.

Then this a.m, I sat him down & show him on a calender that he had exactly 12 days to practise & perfect it. I broke the script into 6 more or less equal portions & advised him to learn 1 new portion a day w revision on previous day(s)' work. Then, hopefully by 7th day onwards, we have 6 more days for polishing his speech & handling of props etc. I also need to buffer for busy/non-productive days.

He was quite worried abt not having enough time & not being able to memorise it but I gave him my assurance.
True enough, abt 5min of memorising e 3 lines later, he was able to give a good & expressive recital & was v pleased w himself.

Hope he can keep this up!

Vevey,
Sometimes the kids are just overwhelmed by a huge task which puts them off totally. I think it was a great idea to break down the task into manageable portions.
:celebrate:

Yup! I second that!!

[tisha]

wonderm:

Chenonceau,


Thank you for sharing! It was really a pleasure to read and learn.

I seem to be able to motivate my boys but I won't be able to put down in words so well as you.

My ds1 didn't do very well for P5 SA2 and I tried to help him in P6 to prepare for PSLE, I was using exactly your method \"success is defined by me and you WILL BE successful by just following me\". I wasn't really sure as that was my first encountering with PSLE myself but as an adult, I had to sound confident. Again like you suggested, I worked together with him with very small and achievable goals. Half way through, he started to gain confidence and felt good about how he was doing. I still remember one day before his prelim, he asked \"am I really going to be ok if I just carry on doing this way?\" I reassured him. The entire process of getting ready for PSLE was almost stress-free and enjoyable and the bonding between us certainly improved.

The good news is that he did do well and got into his dream school. He is in Sec 3 now, much more indepedent but he still values my advice and consults me often about school work and other activities.

To me, the best way to motivate a child is to break down big goals into small actionable tasks and be there to help him achieve them if possible. Simply saying how important is PSLE or give general remarks like \"you must work hard\", will only make the child feel stressed or feel like giving up.

Thanks for sharing your success story wonderm, it gives us hope. :hugs:

[rosemummy]

Chenonceau:

rosemummy:

I'm not sure if it's universally true that paying people enough money is sufficient.

Hi hi... is it the same video you watched 'cos my video says that paying people is insufficient to motivate them? Can I clarify that that is what you meant?

I'm referring to the last part where he talk about paying people enough to get money out of the equation.

[rosemummy]

Chenonceau:

rosemummy:

It's not that there's no punishment for undesirable behavior. In fact, it's a well-oiled bureaucrecy with very well laid out precedures for such cases. There's even a department with about 10 people to just look at the process and update the rule book. Unfortunately, the practice is otherwise.

I suppose that is as good dun have... could you possibly have created your own RIVP then? One of my clients was in roughly the same situation. She found her own way to muscle the fellow (about 50-ish and stubborn and underperforming Head of Something) into an early retirement. Everyone else shaped up after that. The big headache left. She promoted others and transferred others in... culture changed... organisational energy went up and KPI improved quite a bit.

I guess there are some crossovers to parenting because whichever the branch of psychology, you're still reading and drawing components from the same body of basic research. Tee hee! RIVP is RIVP no matter if you're caning or sacking someone.

I guess a little tough then. They pay about the same bonus for everyone, regardless of performance. And I wasn't senior enough then. But I did extend the probation of a new staff who joined them in what they were doing. They did sit up a little after that, but not much. They knew they were long serving, confirmed staff and it's hard for me to justify doing anything to them if they were not found to be unacceptable in the previous 20 years. And honestly, I personally didn't want to have them sacked - they're rank and file staff, middle age men with a family to support. I was hoping to be able to help them to move up instead of ending up in the state they eventually find themselves in.