10 Ways to Keep Your Child Motivated

Have you ever wondered what keeps you motivated? As parents, we often wonder how can we keep our children motivated? How can we help our children find this motivation and drive to do better?

Motivating kids today by bribing them or rewarding them will not go a long way, it should be developed in the kids from a young age and needs to be intrinsic. Times have changed and so have motivational factors; the older generation was motivated by a need and desire for a better life. This is not enough to motivate our children and we often see our kids unenthusiastic or unmotivated. Motivating kids today would involve giving them a sense of purpose for the work they do, the autonomy to follow their passion, and letting them learn from their mistakes. This comes from exploring their interests from a young age. Let them try their hand at different activities to see what interests them and what motivates your kids to do better.

How to Motivate Your Kids –

Trying new Things

Let your child freely explore what it is that they enjoy doing. Be it art, dance, reading or any other hobby that they would like to explore. See what appeals to them and why. What motivates your kid to stick with that hobby? This not only helps them in learning new things and broadening their horizon but also helps in building confidence in the early years. When your child enjoys a certain activity, the child is motivated and looks forward to doing it more.

Set Goals

It is important to set short/long-term goals to motivate your child. Setting SMART (Specific-Measurable-Achievable-Relevant-Time based) goals will help in motivating your child. This will help your child in envisioning their goal and clearly define where they need to reach and the effort, they need to put in for it, which will, in turn, motivate your kids to strive to reach there and plan for it by breaking it into shorter goals.

Emphasize Effort

There no better motivation than reward. Celebrate your child’s success when they have accomplished a goal or for a job well done. Tell them that you’re proud of them and even reward them in a small way to reinforce the habit and further motivate your kid to do better. Build a reward mechanism for your child, this will help the child understand what he/she will gain when the task is done right.

Healthy Competition

Kids who have been involved in sports from a younger age are known to be more competitive and have the drive to win as compared to those that had not been a part of any competitive sport. Healthy competition motivates your child to do better, to hone and build their skills in order to defeat their opponent. The drive to win is what motivates your kids to do better.

Resilience

The true test of motivation is in adversity. Leave room for your kid to make mistakes and learn from them. Only when they will make mistakes, fail and learn from them will they be motivated to do better. This will also teach your kids that success doesn’t come easy, they will have to put in the effort to win. It builds the drive and motivates the child.

Find their Passion

There are 2 types of motivational factors, intrinsic & extrinsic. Extrinsic motivators are external/environmental motivators that motivate your child. Eg. Reward, appreciation, etc. Intrinsic motivation is what motivates your child to do a certain task/activity without any reward in return. This can be developed in your child if you let them follow their passion and do what they truly enjoy doing. This will motivate your kid to pursue their passion and progress in it.

Be Inspiring

Motivate your child by being role models and inspiring them. To motivate your child, let them see your struggle and how you deal with it. It is important that your child hears about your stressors and how you prevailed through them. This will help them realize that success needs persistence – the motivation to keep going in the face of adversity, the commitment to reach the goal that has been set, and the reliance to try again even if they have failed.

Be Positive

We often hear that the older generation was more resilient and faced storms with a smile on their face. Whereas, kids today easily succumb to anxiety and pressure. Having a positive mindset is a great motivator to keep going and keep your child motivated. A positive mindset can be built from an early age where the child is taught to see the silver lining in every situation, this also helps them see opportunities that they might otherwise miss. More importantly, a positive mindset will motivate the child to face adversity and keep going.

Open Conversations

There may be times where the child may feel unmotivated to do something. To motivate your child has an open conversation with them to explain to them why that is important for them and their future. Try to tell them motivational and inspirational stories to keep your child motivated to do something that may not excite them. Open dialogue and conversation will help them understand the WHY.

Focus on the root cause

Sometimes you may be left wondering why your child is unmotivated to do something and this may lead you to resort to pressure tactics, nagging, comparisons, or blackmail. These strategies may backfire and lead the child to be demotivated to do the activity or feel pressurised. We try to target the behavior rather than the root cause, try to reflect and see if you’re doing enough in order to motivate your child in the right direction.

Motivation is the key to success; it is important that we teach our kids to be motivated to achieve their goals. Follow these simple ways to motivate your child to do more and do better. We hope that these points will help you motivate your child.