How to motivate your kids to study better? That is the question. It is the question the answer to which the future of our kids depends on. If we, as parents, can motivate them better, we can ensure they achieve goals they set for themselves and get ahead in life. To understand how to motivate kids, we first need to understand what motivation is.
What is motivation?
Broadly speaking, motivation is the process that starts, directs, and sustains goal-oriented behaviour. There are two types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic.
Intrinsic, or internal motivation, is the force from within that pushes people to achieve their goals and bring plans to fruition without any external pressure. According to Kendra Cherry, MSEd, ‘people are intrinsically motivated when they can act independently, feel that their efforts matter, and gain satisfaction from becoming more skilled.’ Intrinsic motivation has got nothing to do with the desire to earn rewards or avoid punishment. Factors that increase intrinsic motivation include challenge, control, cooperation and competition, curiosity and recognition.
Extrinsic motivation is a motivation that is driven by external rewards like money, grades, praise or fame. There are four kinds of external motivation: external regulation, introjected regulation, regulation through identification and integrated regulation.
1. External regulation
This is the most common type of extrinsic motivation. It takes place when someone receives an external reward for doing something. A child who receives a toy or a treat for completing a task within a specified time is externally regulated.
2. Introjected regulation
This kind of extrinsic motivation starts internally because of external pressures. The external circumstances make a person decide to take action. A child may choose to do homework because s/he sees others do so, and s/he wants to avoid being the only one who doesn’t have homework.
3. Regulation through identification
Regulation through identification derives from an external reward that people consider important. The main characteristic of this kind of motivation is that a person chooses their external reward. For example, a child may choose to act goofy because s/he likes being perceived as funny.
4. Integrated regulation
Integrated regulation can be called externally motivated intrinsic motivation. In this type of motivation, the person understands that the action or task is important. Their attention then shifts from the reward to the task itself. A child may like helping other kids with homework without any reward.
How to motivate your kids to study better?
Having some basic knowledge of motivation can help us understand what to do to motivate our kids to study. Here are some tips that you can take into account when trying to instill in your kids the love of learning.
Do not motivate your child externally, when s/he is already internally motivated.
In other words, do not offer a child a reward to do something they already like doing. The stick-and-carrot method is an especially bad idea here. Offering children the carrot when you can clearly see that they like the activity itself, has actually the opposite effect. It de-motivates them.
In an experiment by Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett, children got rewarded for using a particular kind of pen for drawing. They have already enjoyed using that pen before during playtime on their own. When they were then offered to draw with the pens, they actually showed no interest in doing so. By contrast, the kids who haven’t been rewarded to draw with the pens, continued to like the activity.
An activity that initially feels like fun, stops being fun when it is tied to a reward, and an obligation that is connected to the reward.
Help them enjoy the activity itself.
The children need to feel they have freedom to choose the activity. Giving the child the autonomy is essential to developing intrinsic or integrated motivation. You must aim to show the kids that they can enjoy the activity in different ways:
- Show children that learning a new skill and perfecting it can be a lot of fun.
- Create a learning environment where learning process is the goal in itself, not getting good grades or passing a test.
- inspire curiosity in kids by showing them different uses of things and doing experiments with them.
- Integrate learning with life. There shouldn’t be division between learning and having fun, because learning is not a chore. It is a way of life. It can happen everywhere: during a car ride, a picnic or while walking in the park.
- Let the children choose the activities.
- Celebrate successes and achievements together.
- Support kids by giving constructive feedback rather than criticism. Your suggestions should improve your child’s competence.
- When a child encounters a problem, you teach them to overcome it by giving them tools and strategies.
If the child is not internally motivated, help him/her develop integrated motivation.
Some activities are just not fun to do. If this is the case, help your child find an integrated motivation. Help them find reasons why an activity is important and assist them with internalizing the need for it. Children must understand the meaning and worth of doing something to want to do it. For example, math can be difficult sometimes. By explaining how math can be useful in life, you can help your child understand why practicing it is necessary.
Help kids decide and let them decide.
Freedom to decide what to do or what not to do is an example of the kind of autonomy your child must be free to experience. It can be really scary for a parent to give the child that much freedom, because there is always the possibility they will fail by making a bad decisions. However, failing is a necessary part of life and parents must allow children to fail and learn from the experience. Kids must also be allowed to make decisions and face the natural consequences of their decisions. For example, if they choose not to do homework, they will need to face the consequences at school.
Find a perfectly-balanced challenge.
Your child will feel a sense of pride and accomplishment when s/he finishes a task well. The key here is finding a task that is not too easy and not too hard, so that your child has a challenge, but is not discouraged or experiences self-doubt. The tasks should be made progressively harder and harder. They should be always one step harder than the previous task, so that they are achievable through practice and effort.
This technique also helps your child develop growth mindset when they start seeing that inborn talent is not as important as continuous practice. Encourage your kids to practice and work through their problems rather than give up. When they eventually perfect a new skill, they will have a sense of achievement that will in turn create positive energy and become an internal motivator, setting them up for success.
Grow relatedness by being a democratic parent
Research tells us that a sense of belonging and relatedness can promote internalization. If a child feels close to a parent or a teacher, s/he will learn better. We do not have much influence over what happens at school, but we, as parents can be powerful motivators. Parents can motivate their kids intrinsically by creating a democratic home atmosphere where kids have the chance to make choices and participate in solving problems.
We can also inspire our kids by having a cause. For example, we can let our kids know that learning is important, it is fun and it is a way of life. If our kids feel close to us, they will internalize this value and make it their own. They will want to learn because we like learning.
Get involved to motivate your child.
Another way to create relatedness is to bond with your child by getting involved in family activities. As a parent you can get actively involved in your kid’s activities at home and outside of home. You can organize family reading time where one person reads and the others listen and then you have a discussion on an issue in the book. It is a good idea to have game nights, movie nights and hiking trips. You can volunteer at your child’s school, coach volleyball or go to field trips. Spending quality time with kids not only brings you closer together, but also contributes to your child’s happiness and readiness to learn.
Do you know now how to motivate your child to study better? How do you do it? Do you have any magic tricks?
