How to Motivate a Child or Teen
Ahhhhhhhhh. Internally motivated kids. That’s the dream, right?
Because, wouldn’t it be great if your kid wanted to do their chores and clean their room? Or if they would do their homework without you ever reminding them? What if you never had to nag them to practice piano or free-throws ever again?!
But it doesn’t have to remain a fantasy. You can help your child develop their internal motivation. Which will not only help you, but is an incredibly important part of excelling in adulthood! (So maybe they’ll actually move out one day!)
But First, What is Internal Motivation?
(Ok, bear with me while I geek out for a minute 😋)
Intrinsic motivation theory (the psychological study for all things related to internal motivation) suggests that people engage in some activities purely for the internal reward. There are things that we do, simply because they’re enjoyable to us. They fulfill our sense of competence, independence and/or connectedness.
In contrast, external (or extrinsic) motivation would be doing something for a reward outside of ourselves; like praise, money, or fame.
A kid who is internally motivated does something for the internal reward it brings; a sense of accomplishment, or the sense that volunteering brings them closer to their community, or even the peace that comes from ‘doing their part.’
Steps for How to Motivate A Child
1. Figure out what motivates them.
Sure, you want them to do well in school, but clearly that’s not resonating with them. Look deeper into what’s driving them right now; what psychological need are they trying to fulfill? Are they a kid who loves to learn and will dive deep about topics that are interesting, even if it has nothing to do with school? (Competence) Or are they always trying to find a way to be different from the norm? (Independence) Use that knowledge to reframe why they would want to do well in school.
2. Help your kid develop their identity.
You can help motivate a child by assisting them in defining their identity. Use their behaviors that point towards what drives them (the ones you identified in step 1), to help them identify that as part of their identity. “I am a person who loves to learn” or “I am a person who values individualism.” Essentially, here you are helping them define some of their values. And a value-driven personal is functioning on internal motivation.
3. Find Their “Why”
We need to figure out why this would be a meaningful task for them to accomplish for themselves, rather than for someone else. Depending on the developmental age of your kid*, this would be an awesome conversation to have. (Usually, the most direct way to these answers is to just ask!)These examples of internal motivation would be a great place to dig in. For example, if your trying to motivate your child in sports, you can help them kid see the difference between practicing their free-throw because they simply enjoy basketball, (or the act of mastering a new skill) or because Coach said they had to practice.
*Quick Note*
If you have a kid who hasn’t hit the age of reason or meta-cognition yet (approximately 8ish, but it’ll vary pretty widely) then I would just sprinkle in little sentences throughout the day like, “You seem really proud of the Lego creation you built- I love that you enjoy the process of creating so much!” It may seem small, but after years of hearing how they’ve enjoyed being creative, it’s going to imprint on their brain, and one day that’ll come right back to them, “Oh yeah, I’m someone who loves to create!” That’s when you can help them explore if they like creating new recipes, stories, or even larger projects that are masquerading as homework.
Once your kid hits tween years, I stop trying to be ‘sneaky’ with this sort of conversation, and just talk to them like their adults. They may not understand or process it all completely on an adult level, but it’s a great way to model conversation, and they’ll appreciate the respect.
4. How do you motivate an unmotivated child? Find the hook.
Use those psychological needs that they’re trying to meet, and use those to your advantage. Maybe they’re really working towards connectedness at this moment; some kids balk at homework and studying due to the isolation they feel while they’re doing it. In that case, maybe hosting a study group at your house with kids in their class would help your child do more of their homework during that time?
5. Use personality quizzes!
There’s no denying that personality quizzes are fun to take! Gretchen Rubin, of The Happiness Project, developed a whole personality quiz, called the 4 Tendancies , with the specific tagline, “One of the daily challenges of life is: “How do I get people- including myself- to do what I want?” It’s a great resource for learning how to motivate unmotivated kids, utilizing their personality (especially for older kids/teens who have developed a more stable personality).
Essentially, you’re helping them understand and harness the power of their unique disposition towards why they will do something. According to Gretchen, there are 4 categories of people, Upholder, Obliger, Questioner or Rebel.
So, for example, if my teenager took this quiz, and it told him that he’s a Questioner, we would understand that his drive to know why is very deep, and he will only tend to do things once he understands the purpose and it makes sense to him. That definitely gives us something to work with when we’re trying to internally motivate a child!
6. Tie small facts into the process.
Fun fact- learning small, new, novel facts hits your brain the same way that scrolling Facebook for new information does. It gives us a tiny hit of dopamine, and lights up the reward centers in our brains.
So, learning tiny, interesting facts is a very rewarding process, (although understanding it as a reward is fairly subconscious). Essentially, it will complete the loop in the brain that says, “I just did something, where’s my reward” without offering an external reward.
To use this tip, just keep it simple and tell your kid that after they complete whatever task you’re trying to get them to do, you will tell them a fun fact! (Or a weird fact, or a gross fact. You know your kid best. Use this to your advantage.)
While technically this fact could be about anything, bonus points for making the topic relevant to what they’re working on. (Ie: you want your kid to make their bed every day? Arm yourself with weird bed facts, like that the spring mattress was invented in Germany in 1871)
Avoid This Trap If You Want to Raise A Self-Motivated Child
If you want to self-motivate your child, The one thing NOT to do: DO NOT GIVE AN EXTERNAL REWARD! It’s a trap. You think you can reward a task, create a positive association, and then remove the reward. It makes sense. It follows everything we’ve been taught in Psych 101 and that we know about Pavlov and his famous drooling dogs. But I repeat, it’s a trap! (And yes, as a mom of 3 boys, I really want to put a Star Wars joke here. But I digress…)
What really happens when we reward the completed task is that our children are now working towards an external reward. Things like praise, ice cream, or even gold stars are all external rewards. Which is kind of the exact opposite of what we were going for. It seems like a great short-cut, even like common sense, but the result will be an externally motivated child, not an internally motivated one.
Now You Know How to Motivate A Child
These steps will work for whatever reason you have for needing to motivate a child. Whether they need motivated to work on school and learn, or to practice music or sports, these steps are universal. They’ll even help a kid who may seem unmotivated, stubborn, or even lazy.
The trick is as simple and challenging as finding what makes our kids tick, and using that to their advantage.
[bctt tweet=”The trick to motivating our kids is as simple- and challenging- as finding what makes our kids tick, and using that to their advantage.”]
Becoming an adult means doing the hard and unfulfilling tasks, even if you don’t want to. So helping your kid find (and use) internal motivation is a key part to helping them become a successful, independent adult.
What are you trying to motivate your child to do? Share in the comments below!