Boosting Your Child's Performance: Encouraging Self-Motivation

We often underestimate the importance of self-motivation in childhood. We think of self-motivation as a skill that enables children to get out of bed in time to catch the school-bus and to remember to brush their teeth without persistent prodding.

A nice skill, but hardly essential.

Or is it?

Recent research suggests a strong correlation between a child's self-motivation and a child's success at school.

A 2009 study by Christiana tested 640 students and 80 teachers from 16 different secondary schools. Researchers used a self-motivation questionnaire and asked questions on academic performance. They found that self-motivation was vital to higher-academic attainment.

A further 2012 study by Kusurkar and colleagues tested 383 medical students on motivation and academic performance. The study found that the quality of motivation was

"important in determining good performance."

The reason for this may be found in the brain. Smith (2002) found that internal rewards (like that good feeling you get when you're satisfied with a job well-done) activates the amygdala, the basal ganglia, the hippocampus, the brainstem, and the nucleus accumbens. This is our internal reward system. The more of these areas that are activated, the quicker we learn.

What is Self-Motivation?

Self-Motivation is sometimes called "intrinsic" motivation.

It is the wish to do or explore something without the motivation of an external reward ("do your homework, and you can play your game for thirty minutes") or the threat of an external punishment ("don't do your homework, and you'll go to bed early"). It's the internal drive of motivation that drives us on, and makes us want to achieve (rather than "coasting", doing the bare minimum to avoid censure).

The Difference Between the Self-Motivated Child and the Unmotivated Child

Being motivated affects a child's whole attitude and behaviour. These changes make children try harder and do better.

Einstein did not credit his successes to intelligence, but to motivation, saying:

"It's not that I'm so smart...It's just that I stay with problems longer."

Motivated children:

• Are more likely to choose challenging tasks, giving them the opportunity to learn
• Do tasks without being asked
• Concentrate more
• Have a positive attitude to their education
• Stick-with tasks when they get hard, and will see them though to the end

Unmotivated children

• Choose very simple tasks they can do without challenge
• Must be repeatedly asked to do tasks
• Give work minimal effort
• May have a negative attitude to their education
• Give up tasks when they are hard, and frequently leave tasks unfinished.

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Step 1: Help Children Feel Competent

Don't rush to do everything for your child. Instead, allow your child the space and time (under your supervision) to do things for themselves.

Let them pick out their clothes (and don't rush to tell your two-year-old that the purple dress they picked doesn't coordinate with their stripy green tights). Let then try to fasten their own shoes (who can forget the delight in their little one's face as they fasten and unfasten their shoes repeatedly when they learn their new skill). Ask for help to prepare a meal, staggering increasingly complex tasks over months and years (washing vegetables, mixing cake-mix with a spoon, tenderising meat with a mallet, coating chicken escalope in egg and breadcrumbs, and so on).

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Letting your child do things for themselves proves to your child that you think they are competent and capable. Each time they master a new skill, they experience the joy of success, and each success boosts feelings of competence. When a child feels competent, they feel motivated. They can't wait to do more things for themselves.

Step 2: Use Encouragement, not Praise

Praise is empty. Praise doesn't motivate a child, because it doesn't tell your child what they're doing right.

Rather than saying - when your child proudly presents you with their picture - "That's a pretty picture", tell them what you like about it: "I like the way you used reds and greys on the squirrel. It's coloured just like real squirrel that you'd see in the garden."

When your child has laid the table, don't just say, "Good job!", but say "I really like the way you put out the napkins."

This not only acknowledges what your child is doing right, it also helps the child feel competent in the skills they are gaining. This will boost their self-motivation to keep at it.

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Step 3: Never Say "That's Easy"

Nothing devalues a child and their effort more than to tell them that the problem they've been struggling to work out alone for an hour is "easy".

Say your child is really struggling to master long-division. It would do their self-esteem, or motivation, no good if they asked for help and you sat down, looked at their problem and said: "Long-division's easy."

That immediately makes the child feel stupid, incompetent and disinclined to like maths. Your intentions may be good - to make light of the problem - but what you really make light of is your child's difficulties.

Instead, validate their difficulties: "Yes, long division can be a tricky subject.", and then offer practical help.

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Step 4: Be Aware of Different Learning Styles

A child may seem unmotivated if all the information they're receiving is in a certain style, and it doesn't suit the style that's best for them

There are generally three types of learners:

Auditory:

• Learn best by hearing information
• Can "talk themselves" through a problem
• May use rhymes, word games or songs to teach the information, such as this old one to learn the planets: "My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming Planets" (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto)
• May prefer audiobooks to listen to when reading

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Visual

• Learn best by seeing information
• Make brightly-coloured charts and graphs to revise
• May benefit from a study-wall of colour-coded homemade posters
• Flashcards are useful
• Mind may wander in oral presentations

Kinaesthetic

• Learns best by doing (such as building a model)
• Try to make learning active. Use props (such as counters) to teach mathematic principles
• Encourage your child to take active breaks every thirty minutes when revising
• Encourage your child to act-out passages when trying to learn a book
• Hands-on-projects will boost your kinaesthetic learner's self-esteem and motivation.

More Ways to Boost Self-Motivation

Step 5: Be an Enthusiastic Learner

Children model the behaviour of their parents. If you want your kids to be enthusiastic about school, make sure you are an enthusiastic learner, too.

Does that mean you have to go on college courses, and watch Open University programmes at two in the morning? You can (although for the sake of a sound sleep, I'd record the Open University). However, being an active and enthusiastic learner doesn't have to take place in a classroom:

• Have books in your home: have them everywhere and (with obvious exceptions) accessible to small and curious hands
• Take your child to museums and galleries, and make it clear that you enjoy being there
• Share your hobbies with your children: music, photography, politics, history 
• If you have a question, look it up with your child (on the internet or in an encyclopaedia). Show you can love learning at any age.

Step 6: Relate Real-World Learning to What Your Kids Learn at School

Education can seem so remote to a child. "Why do we need to know about history?" "What's the point of physics?" "Why-oh-why do we have to learn trigonometry?"

Applying engaging, real-world experiences to your child's education could help your child recognise the value of their education.

Ideas include:

• Take a trip to the beach and study seahorses and crabs when your child's class is studying marine life (don't forget to have an ice-cream).
• Take a trip to a living history museum if your child is studying the appropriate period in history. There are some excellent ones. Ideas include [see links]:
  • Beamish Open Air Museum, North-East England, UK - History in England from the 1820s - 1940s
  • Black Country Living Museum, West Midlands, UK - History from 1850s - 1950s
  • The Buffalo Niagara Heritage Museum (formerly the Amherst Museum), Amherst NY, USA - 1840s - 1880s
  • The Jamestown Settlement Living History Museum, Virginia, US - 17th century
• Relate things your child is learning to your child's personal experiences or family history:
  • "Grandma came to the USA, just like the first settlers on the Mayflower did, except she came in the 1930s. How do you think Grandma may have felt?"
  • "Do you think the lion in the wildlife park looks like the one in your natural history book?"
• Get your child involved in cooking and craft projects to show how maths can be applied in real-world situations, and grow a tomato plant or some watercress together to show how principles of biology work.
• Take a trip to the theatre to see a play your child is learning. Ask your child what they thought of the directors' choices (staging, lighting, costumes); would they have staged it differently?
• When a child's learning about another culture, go to a restaurant that serves food from that culture (or make some yourself at home), and read about the country and its history on the internet.
• Visit a museum, and see a dinosaur up close when your child's learning about evolution.

Step 7: Let Your Child Have Some Control

Research shows that children who have more freedom to decide their learning are more motivated, and are better studiers, than children whose parents schedule and dictate their every moment.

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That doesn't mean you should allow your children to do whatever they wish. But you should allow your children permission to make choices from within a selection that you find equally appropriate:

• Will they do their homework as soon as they get home from school, or have a snack first?
• Which book would they like to read before bed, and would they like to read to themselves or have you read to them?

Also, permit your child to choose the natural consequences, should they not do what they promise. Pushing a consequence onto a child will always be less-effective than a consequence your child chose.

• Say your child had chosen to do their homework after a snack. Work with your child to decide what would be the most appropriate consequence if your child chose not to do their homework for one day (perhaps not to play their game for one evening, or to miss 30 minutes of TV the next night),or an appropriate consequence should your child not choose to do their homework for several days (perhaps the removal of their games console for several days, or removing the TV from their room).

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Step 8: Encourage Security

Remember, as your child's parent, you are their base. You are their launching-pad, from which they will go out and explore the world. So, give your child a solid, supportive ground.

Your child needs to know that you are always be there for them, and that they can go out and tackle challenges, knowing that you will be the person they can always return to for reassurance and help, no matter what.

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In order to maintain this strong, loving relationship, which supports motivated children:

• Let your child know you love them, just as they are. Your love is not predicated on their success. Your child must have room to try and fail, and pick themselves up and try again.
• Support all your child's (legal) hobbies. Even if you love ballet, and always dreamed your child would be the next Margot Fonteyn, don't hesitate to sign them up for rock guitar, fun with trigonometry, or rugby if that's where their heart's desire lies. Make it clear that your love is unconditional, not based on academic achievements, hobbies, or other successes. You may not understand them, but difference is the spice of life.
• Don't put pressure on your child to achieve certain results. Don't compare your children to siblings or friends, or expect them to get certain results (As or Bs, for example). Instead, tell your child that, if they "try their best", you can't help but be proud of them. And be sure to note any improvement in their results:
  • "You've really got the hang of multiplication now."
  • "You've mastered the I-before-E rule."
• Help your child to accept failure. Sometimes, children will fail. That's a given. We all do. The most important thing is how they face failure. Sometimes they will come last in sports' day, or the poem they worked really hard on will not even get a mention in the school competition. If that happens, be a model of acceptance. Tell your child that the most important thing is that they tried, and that they learned good lessons doing it. And teach how to shake hands with the winner and be a good sport.
• Understand how your child feels. Children can feel that their parents have no idea how they feel (after all, their parents have never been children before!). Let your children know that you understand how they feel. If your child is wriggling because it's a sunny day and they'd rather be playing outside than doing their homework, say: "I know it's tough to be inside when it's so nice out. But look, you've just got a few questions left and then you've finished your homework. Then you can play until dinner, like we agreed."

These eight ways can help your child grow in motivation, recognising the value and the fun to be found in education. By preventing education becoming a chore and helping your child grow their intrinsic motivation, you're getting them off to a great start in life.