The Motivation Balancing Act Parents Must Learn to Navigate
Motivating young people is not a simple task. On one hand, if you push them too often with external motivators you will kill their ability to develop self-motivation. On the other hand, if you leave a child to their own devices they may only show motivation to do things like play video games that won’t help them in the long run. So what is a parent to do?
Obviously, there is no easy answer for this balancing act or it would already be common knowledge. However, there are still only a few things to remember if you want to at least get close to the right answer.
As famed psychologist and author Edward Deci’s research suggest, “motivation is the energy for action“. With this in mind, if a child doesn’t recognize how a behavior leads to a desired outcome they won’t have that energy. What’s more, energizing a child is even more difficult when the outcome is something the parent wants more than the child.
As a result, there are three key takeaways to always keep in the back of your mind as you seek to motivate your child.
- The first step for motivation comes from helping a child develop a burning desire for something.
- The more a child desires something innately, the less you have to use external motivation to direct their behavior to get it.
- Don’t fight against your child’s innate desires. Instead, understand those desires beyond a surface level and then help your child direct them into something productive.