Best Way to Motivate a Child

Everybody needs motivation before they are prompted to activity—this is human nature. If you aren’t moti­vated by hunger, you won’t eat; if a student isn’t motivated by the desire to learn, she won’t attend class. And if your child isn’t motivated by the wish to please you, she might not do as you ask. Motivation is the driving force underlying all human behavior.

Yet your child may be one of those who appears to lack all motivation, and as a result, you may describe her as “lazy” because she has no drive or enthusiasm, makes no effort at any­thing, and is content to watch television all day without mov­ing from the chair. However, the word “lazy” suggests that the low level of activity is an inherent personality characteristic, something inside your child that makes her unwilling to put in any effort. As such, it may be misleading, and it can lead to con­flict as your efforts to blast your child into action are matched by her efforts to remain inert.

A more positive way to approach the situation is in terms of motivation. Instead of criticizing your child for her apparent laziness, ask yourself what can be changed in your child’s imme­diate environment so that she’ll become more enthusiastic. One common source of controversy in a family is a child’s reluctance to tidy her room, which usually ends up with her parents accus­ing her of laziness. There may be other reasons why the child doesn’t tidy her room; for instance, the task is so overwhelming for her that she doesn’t know where to begin (in which case you can help by encouraging her to tidy a little at a time, following a plan), or it could be because she knows you will eventually do it for her (in which case you can help by making it clear that tidying the room is her responsibility, not yours).

Likewise, a young child’s failure, say, to regularly practice playing a musical instrument often has absolutely nothing to do with laziness and everything to with the fact that the child doesn’t enjoy the activity—she’ll only practice regularly when she likes the instrument. And a child who doesn’t seem to try hard to achieve in school may lack motivation because she has a poor self-image and expects herself to fail. Calling that child, or indeed any child, lazy will serve no purpose at all.

So if you do think that your child is lazy, consider the spe­cific situations in which that unmotivated behavior is seen, and try to determine what feature demotivates your child and also what could be added to the situation to fire her enthusiasm. One of the best ways to establish this is to ask the child herself!

You may find that her suggestions are very straightforward— such as doing the activity at a different time, or at a different pace. Lack of motivation sometimes occurs when a child feels she is not involved in the decision-making process: for exam­ple, the art class was selected by her parents, not by her. Your child is more likely to have a higher level of motivation to com­plete a task when she has positively selected the task herself.