Christmas break has come to an end and the students who aren’t exactly excited to return to the classroom might find their “school flame” a bit weak, or worse, extinguished. William Butler Yeats said, “Schooling is not the filling of the pail, but the lighting of the fire.” So what to do when a student has little or no motivation to complete their homework? What can you say to a child that doesn’t even want to go to school? How can a student stay motivated beyond Gym Wednesday or Pizza Friday? As a parent or educator, we pull out our best logic, we use all the reasons that schoolwork should get done-but the problem is, motivation is a feeling, so trying to create this feeling using logic doesn’t always work.
Deborah Stipek, Ph.D, Dean of the Stanford University School of Education, is an expert in the subject of motivation in young children. She’s also a mother, so her latest book, Motivated Minds/Raising Children to Love Learning, is full of practical advice.
Dr. Stipek says kids will be self-motivated to learn when they:
- Feel competent about something
- Have some choice and control over their learning
- Believe that intelligence isn’t fixed at birth
- Feel loved and respected by their parents
FIND YOUR CHILD’S PASSIONS
Create a list of the things that your child naturally enjoys doing. If your child has a particular strength in school, such as being a math whiz, find ways outside of school to expose him or her to math in the real world – computers, hands-on science museums, and math camps.
If he/she struggles with most school subjects, look elsewhere for his or her passions. Pay attention to whatever makes your child perk up. Is it animals? Plants? Music? Art? Sports?
Have your child build a collage of this passion, let him/her write a book or make a family website. He/she could research and write about animals that are rarely seen. Try putting his/her picture in photos of these animals, Photoshop him or her in a setting as a famous explorer who finds rare animals. Let him or her draw an animal he/she imagines might be found someday.
Use this passion in all subjects, making it fit math skills, spelling, writing and reading.
Talk about how performing well in school will help them achieve their dreams of reaching that desired passion. Once you help them see how their actions will lead to a cool future, create a daily routine that ensures that they do what they need to do. Once the homework task is done, they are rewarded with more focus on their passion.
The key to motivating your child the second part of the year is by associating positive emotions and feelings with spending time on their homework.