Parents Motivate Your Kids: The Amazing Truth About What Motivates

What motivates us to perform at our peak, once we earn enough to live comfortably:

• Being self –directed
• The urge to achieve mastery
• The satisfaction of getting better at what we do
• The ability to make a contribution

While parents may believe that they should direct their child’s behaviors, science demonstrates that over-management dis-empowers children, teens and adults.  By standing back and allowing children to come up with creative solutions, parents are most likely to instill a sense of purpose, drive and motivation.

What About Chores and Homework

You may be struggling to enlist your child’s participation and enthusiasm for chores or homework.  While it can be difficult to incentivize children to actively participate in family chores, do not give up.  You may have been using the wrong incentive.

Dan Pink explores the research on motivation in his 10 minute YouTube Video.  Imagine using incentives that actually lead to positive results.  What you will discover is that beyond basic allowance, monetary incentives are likely to decrease drive and motivation.

Making A Contribution Promotes Self Satisfaction

Science shows that once you are beyond mechanical tasks, people are motivated through autonomy where they are self-directed and the joy of mastery.  Contributing is what promotes self-satisfaction and give people a sense of purpose.

How does this work with children, teens and chores?

Children and teens are much more responsive to contributing when they get to chose their chores.  Think of having a white board with all the tasks listed.  Saturday morning your family would initial the chores they each wanted to take on.

The children go first and everyone has a good laugh about the remaining less desirable chores that parents have to choose from.  Openly laughing at yourselves helps children find delight in their “Premium chores” that they preferred.  It is quite amazing how proficient your children seem when doing the chores of their choosing.

The reward at the end of the chore completion is a family activity that is pure fun.  When we used this approach to chores in my family, we were amazed at the thoroughness and pride that our children took in finishing their self-selected chores.

It is important to note that we all did the chores during the same period.  If we lagged as parents behind our children, they would sometimes offer to help out so that we could be done sooner.  The sooner we were all done, the sooner we would be able to go have fun.  There was no squabbling because our children alternated in choosing the chores of their liking.  As parents we did not mind the less desirable chores because our aim was taking pleasure in everyone contributing.

Lessons Learned

If you want to instill purpose, drive and motivation in your children, it is of key importance that you provide them with a choice to incentivize them.  The more self-directed your children are, the more sense of pride of accomplishment that they will experience.

Parents doing all the work and not expecting anything from children unless you stand over them to monitor their work generates negative emotions and an overall disincentive.  Expecting more, providing a challenge, giving room for autonym are all the underpinnings of helping your child to develop a sense of purpose, and drive.

Build Drive and Motivation

It’s hard to convey the difference in parents lives before and after I discovered this secret.  While they once dreaded getting their children to take on responsibility, now they can’t wait to get all the chores done with positive attitudes all around.

While it requires work – the formula is powerful and I urge you to give it a go in your family … and reap the benefits!