Motivation
One of the most important lessons that I have learned this semester was on motivation. I struggled finding motivation for myself, and still do struggle to be motivated to do things that I do not want to do. My biggest question and fear that I have is how do I teach motivation to my children if I am not sure how to teach myself? How do I give them those attributes and values that I am still trying to learn?
What I learned from my class is that there is no one magical talk you can have with your children in order to motivate them. It needs to be taught to them throughout their lives.
It starts by not giving them bribes. Offering a reward for work they should be doing regardless teaches them that everything worth doing needs a decent reward. If the reward isn't large enough, it's not worth it. Bribes can also dishearten children as they find no reward for something they have done, making them not want to continue the action in the future.
We motivate our children through how we praise them. Rather than giving them generic, "that was great!" "You're so good" and "good job", we should be specific on why we are proud of them. Telling them that they did a good job tells them that the result is the only thing that we are about or that matters/ We need to take notice of what they are doing, and how it must be making them feel. Telling your child "You did a good job on that test" is not as effective as telling them "Your score has improved a lot because of your studying. I am so proud!"
Here is a TED Talk on the same subject:
What I learned from my class is that there is no one magical talk you can have with your children in order to motivate them. It needs to be taught to them throughout their lives.
It starts by not giving them bribes. Offering a reward for work they should be doing regardless teaches them that everything worth doing needs a decent reward. If the reward isn't large enough, it's not worth it. Bribes can also dishearten children as they find no reward for something they have done, making them not want to continue the action in the future.
We motivate our children through how we praise them. Rather than giving them generic, "that was great!" "You're so good" and "good job", we should be specific on why we are proud of them. Telling them that they did a good job tells them that the result is the only thing that we are about or that matters/ We need to take notice of what they are doing, and how it must be making them feel. Telling your child "You did a good job on that test" is not as effective as telling them "Your score has improved a lot because of your studying. I am so proud!"
Here is a TED Talk on the same subject:
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