Motivating Your Child to Succeed in School!

Good students are motivated by the rewards they get from being good students.  Many kids enjoy the praise that goes along with doing well in school.  For some kids getting a good grade and being on the honor roll is their reward.  Others like to bask in the praise they receive from parents and teachers when they do well.  They are willing to work hard because they covet the payoff their efforts produce.  That’s all well and good, but not all kids feel this way.  I conduct teacher workshops across the country and one comment I hear often is that students are capable of so much more if they would just put in the effort.  This seems to be true for the advanced students as well as those who are struggling.  So how do we motivate our kids to achieve more in school?

The motivation to achieve academically has many factors, which include parental input, family values, and cultural influences.  If a child’s parent encourages their kids to do well in school and family expectations are high as well as growing up in a culture that values doing well in school, then the chances are that your child will also value school accomplishments.  So the first thing that you need to do to help motivate your child for school success is to talk about and place importance on what goes on at their school and in their classes.  We talk about what we think is important, so talk about school.  This means more than just asking “So what did you do in school today?”  Because you know the answer to that question is going to be “Nothing”.  

A general question doesn’t get much of a response.  For example, I asked one of my children if any thing exciting happened at school one night during our evening meal.  His response was “No”.  The next day I found out that there had been a fire at his school in his chemistry class.  That night at dinner I asked him about the fire and why he hadn’t told me about it the night before when I asked about anything exciting happening?  His response was “You asked about something exciting, now if we had gotten to go home from school – that would have been exciting!”  You will need to ask questions, which allow your children to talk about specific things that happened.  For example ask about an assignment that you know they have been working on or an activity that is taking place at school.  So our first step in motivating kids to achieve more in school is to make education important by talking about it.  Not just once in awhile, but every day.  

A second thing you can do to motivate children is to instill a feeling of self-confidence.  Kids who do well in school get rewarded and they want to continue to do well.  The reward of doing well and being praised for their efforts either verbally or by receiving good grades motivates them.  They try even harder because praise is addictive - it feels good!

 The child who is not doing well in school is not being rewarded.  They have little success.  They receive no praise.  They receive low grades and failure becomes the norm.  The more they fail, the less they believe in themselves and the less self-confidence they have.  It becomes a hopeless spiral.  Because of this daily experience, school becomes a place to fear and lessons are to be avoided so no one will know how dumb they really are.  Some kids will purposely act out at school so people focus on their behavior rather than the fact that they aren’t doing well in class.    

How do kids get this feeling of self- confidence that can encourage kids who do well to accomplish even more and help those who are struggling to stop the downward spiral?  One step you can take is to help your child learn how to set goals.  Setting and achieving a goal is a great confidence builder.  This sounds so simple yet it is really very powerful.  Help your children set goals.  By finding opportunities where your child can experience the thrill of accomplishment, you can help strengthen a child’s self-confidence.  First decide in what areas your child would like to set a goal.  If they like school and are doing well, then they may want to set a goal around their schoolwork.  If school is a problem area for your child, then start with something outside of school.  Find something they enjoy and set a goal in that area.  This could be a hobby, a sport, an activity, etc.  This is a must.  If you are setting a goal for them in an area where they have no interest, then their motivation is going to be low.  Once you have found an area they enjoy, sit down with them and talk about a goal they would like to reach in that area.  Later when they are feeling more confident in their abilities, have them set a school related goal.  Your child might resist doing this if all they have experienced is failure.  So be understanding if they are not 100% sold on trying to set a goal.  The goal doesn’t have to be a large one, even minor successes can start building self-confidence. 

As you work on writing a goal with your child, remember that the goal must be very specific and measurable.  Have you ever told your children to go clean their room?  What does that really mean?  To a child this can mean anything from a path from the bed to the door so they can escape if there is a fire to the floor being clean enough to eat off of because Grandma is coming to visit.  So be specific.  An example of a poor goal is “I you want to be happy.” What does that really mean?  How do you know when you reach happy?  It is neither specific nor measurable.  Compare that goal with this one.  When I play basketball I want to be able to make seven out of ten free throws.  That goal is specific and can be measured.  Help your child write their goal so they will know when they have reached it. 

Encourage them to set reasonable and attainable goals.  Remember that you want to build self-confidence, not destroy it.  If they don’t know how to swim, then a goal of swimming a mile would be unrealistic.  If they only got 5 out of 20 words correct on the last spelling test, then you don’t want to set a goal of getting all 20 correct.  Start small and build up.  Set the goal to get 8 of 20 correct.  Start small and build as they achieve. The goal should be one that can be reached in a couple of weeks.  Have them set a target date for reaching the goal.  Then they should write the goal on a piece of paper along with the date they want to accomplish the goal and place it someplace in the house where they will see it on a daily basis.  For maximum impact you want them to have a many successes in as short a period of time as possible.  Reaching ten small goals in a couple of months will be more powerful than one large goal in the same amount of time.  Having your child set and achieve small goals strengthens self-confidence. 

If they set a goal and fail to achieve it, you can discuss what the problems they encountered that made them not reach the goal and brainstorm what can be done to solve those problems.  Then have them set a new target day for reaching the goal and try again.  Once they start experiencing success, they will want more success.  Use goals to motivate them to do better in school and other areas of their lives.  Goal setting is a habit that will take them far. 

If you really want to make the experience one that has a lot of impact, then you set a goal right along with your child.  Write your goal down and put it up in the house right alongside your child’s. 

Motivation?  I have given you two ways to help motivate your child to do well in school.  The first was to talk about school on a daily basis so your child will know that you care about what happens in school and feel that school is important.  The second way is to build their self-confidence by teaching them to set and reach a goal.  Give these a try and see how your child responds. 

How can we help our kids make good decisions?  

By helping them make decisions.  

Active learning means learning by doing.  Therefore just teaching kids the steps to making a good decision is not enough, kids need guided practice and that is where parents come in.  

Johnny asks Dad, "Can I go to Jimmy's house and play?"  Suzie asks Mom, "Can I have a bowl of ice cream?"  These and others are typical questions that might come up at your house.  They are also great opportunities for you to let your child practice their decision making skills.  Usually parents will just answer "yes" or "no" and the matter will be over.  That would be a good approach if you were willing to follow your child around for the rest of their life and make their decisions for them.  However, most of us are hoping that they will eventually move out of the house and be on their own at some time in the future.  Even before they move out, they will be making decisions away from home, at school and while engaged in other activities.  You can help by letting them practice making decisions while you are around to help guide them.  

There are five basic steps to making a decision.

1.  Identify the problem

2.  Make a list of the possible choices

3.  List the pros and cons of each choice

4.  Choose an action 

5.  Evaluate the consequences

Learning this steps is the easy part.  The difficult part is putting them into practice.  To help your children learn how to make decisions, do not answer every request they make.  Instead, let them go over out loud the steps to making a decision.  Choose your questions carefully to do this with, since you will have to live with the decision they make.

Let's use Johnny's question about going over to Jimmy's house and see what happens.  Instead of answering "yes" or "no", let's have Johnny go through the steps out loud with Mom or Dad.  The problem is whether or not he can go to Jimmy's house to play.  What are the choices?  He can go to Jimmy's or he can stay home.  If he goes to Jimmy's he might miss dinner because it is only one half hour until dinner time.  He will also miss a television show that he has been wanting to watch.  But on the other hand he will have a lot of fun at Jimmy's because Jimmy has a new Nintendo game cartridge.  If he decides to stay home he will definitely be there for dinner and will watch the television show that he likes so much.  But Jimmy has only rented the game cartridge of one night so he won't be able to play it another day.

Johnny decides to go ahead and go to Jimmy's house.  After he gets home it is time to evaluate the decision.  Johnny says that the game was fun, but he wishes he had stayed home because he did miss dinner and it turned out to be his favorite...pizza.  Johnny has learned that next time before he makes a decision he needs to gather more information.  In this case he should have asked what was for dinner.  Johnny learned that information gathering is an important part of any decision.  

I realize that this is more time consuming than just than just saying "yes" or "no", but think of the benefits.  As your child becomes older he or she will take more responsibility for his or her decisions and with this training they will make better decisions....even when you are not around.  Try it a few times and you will find the process becomes faster, your kids will begin thinking for themselves and better decisions are being made.     

by Tom Jackson

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We should teach values to our children because it is the most significant and effective thing we can do for their happiness.  Linda and Richard Eyre in Teaching Your Children Values

A working definition of a value:  Something you subjectively judge worth having, doing or being.

Kids don't need more things to do, they need more adults to do things with.  Verne Larsen, Utah State Office of Education

Your parents instill your values.  If not, you would not know what to believe, and you would believe in anything.  Jennifer, 17 year old

I got my values and morals from my parents, and I interpret the outside influences from that base.  Michelle, 17 year old

Whatever you would have your children become, strive to exhibit in your own lives and conversation.  Lydia H. Sigourney

Currently, talk about virtue, values, morals and character has emerged in the forefront of the movement for social change.  However, it is important to understand that these traits must be taught rather than talked.  Barbara Unell and Jerry Wyckoff in 20 Teachable Virtues

Great learning and superior abilities, should you ever possess them, will be of little value and small estimation unless virtue, honor, truth, and integrity are added to them.  Abigail Adams told her son John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States

USA Network's two-hour WWF Raw wrestling show averages on 36 minutes of actual wrestling, leaving plenty of time for crotch-grabbing and obscene gestures.  An Indiana University study of 50 WWF Raw episodes found 1,658 instances of a character grabbing oe pointing to his own crotch - roughly eight every half hour, not counting slow-motion replays.   Also noted: 128 instances of simulated sexual activity and 47 references to satanic activity.  Raw is one of cable's highest-rated shows.  40 million viewers. 13% between the ages of 6 - 11 (5,200,000 kids)  30% under the age of 17 (12,000,000) USA Today February 23, 1999  

"Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts."  A sign that allegedly hung in Albert Einstein's office.