Motivating a Child with Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose
Yesterday I made the case for why using carrot and stick tactics to motivate your child is dangerous. Today I am going to try to give you a simple alternative for tapping into your child’s self-motivation.
If you have more time on your hands, I suggest going deeper later. You can start by using the suggestions from this article on spotting what drives your child’s self-motivation. However, if that approach is too complex than this simplified approach may be exactly what you need.
When you want to keep self-motivation simple, all you have to do is focus on the big 3 motivators.
- Autonomy: Motivating a child by either providing options to pick from or giving that child complete control of a choice. Then also giving the child the freedom to see their choice through to completion without adult intervention.
- Mastery: Motivating a child by putting the child in a position to continually get better at something he or she enjoys.
- Purpose: Motivating a child with short, medium and long term goals put into a plan that is both realistic and meaningful to him or her.
This basic framework comes from author Daniel Pink as presented in his book Drive. Pink uses these three basic motivators in the context of motivating employees at work. However, applying the same concept to parents or coaches who need to motivate children is both practical and judicious.
Autonomy
Children who are creative, rebellious, or who have trouble with authority are good candidates for motivational techniques with autonomy as the focus.
Mastery
If a child is very competitive, regularly takes on difficult challenges, or enjoys showing off their success, then try using mastery as the center of your motivational techniques.
Purpose
Finally, if a child enjoys helping others, working with friends, or checking tasks off a list then motivation techniques that center around purpose are ideal.