For what must have been the thousandth time, Angela was watching her son Aaron get lost in video games. His thirteen year-old face was virtually glued to the screen of the TV set. Lights flashed, characters rose and fell, the guns fired and the monsters roared. Nearly every evening, the same battle between them ensued. How in the world to get Aaron motivated, if only half as much, toward his school work?

Is this scenario familiar? For scores of parents of children of all ages, it is all too real. The challenge of motivating kids towards the tasks so important in their development can be a frustrating and even frightening endeavor. Video games and other fun seem endlessly ‘motivating,’ but for responsibilities no easy motivators are to be found. And many means of motivating a child lose their effectiveness over time; sometimes in seemingly no time at all. For too many families, motivating children toward responsibilities has come to involve frustration, embattlement and heartache. Does it have to be so?

NO! Motivating anyone of any age does not have to be a painful, embattled process. However, that doesn’t mean that it will be easy. There are easier tasks for parents, both at home and at work, than developing ways of motivating their kids toward homework or other unattractive tasks. Yet, instilling motivation within children is an essential skill set for most parents. Much of the intimacy experienced between parents and their children is gained or lost in these efforts. To find success in this area is empowering for both parent and child.

To be effective as a motivator, there are four sets of ideas that one must think through. The first is that to effectively motivate an individual, it is essential to have a working concept of motivation- what it is and how it works. There is an old notion that says most of the solution to a problem lies in its definition. To have a practical concept of motivation allows for a working creativity towards it.

Second, it is important to understand what it means to be motivating. That is, what are the dynamics within a task of activity that motivate individuals towards it? What is the magic in video games, for example? While these questions have answers that differ in specifics between individuals, there are several important generalities that are helpful to keep in mind.

Third, what is the relational, or social, context within which the desired tasks exist? For virtually everything we do, there is a relevant and important social context. Important people, and their participation, in a child’s life have considerable impact upon motivation. Sometimes there is more than one such context and these are not always compatible (i.e. parents vs. peers). To motivate someone, it is imperative to understand how the child believes success or failure will effect their place with these important people.

And finally, the fourth set of ideas has to do with some practical strategies for applying these first three areas of concern in day to day life. As we have noted with all our articles and products, we can only hope to enhance your creativity with your children by offering general ideas. As you read through all of this material, be careful to consider how all of it applies to you and your child and how you might add to or otherwise enhance what we share here.

BUT FIRST- The ideas that follow presume two important dynamics. The first is that your child/teen is not significantly involved in any substance abuse. A pattern of drinking or using drugs weekly, or less, can significantly interfere with a child/teen’s availability for motivation. This is true partly because of the effects of the drugs consumed and also the typical peer group affiliations that go with substance abuse. These are forces that are nearly impossible with which to compete and for which specific interventive actions are essential.

Secondly, we presume that your teen/child is not subject to chemical imbalances that have been undiagnosed and untreated or insufficiently treated. A child who is struggling with ADHD/ADD or genetic predispositions for anxiety or depression, who has not been appropriately treated, will have a difficult time responding to your efforts, however creative and endearing, to arouse and sustain motivation. If you have concerns for your child in these regards, please consult your pediatrician or a child psychologist for further assessment. The material we offer here can be of much better service for you if these bases have been covered.

This said, lets dig into the dynamics and strategies of motivating children!

The Problem

Motivation can be usefully understood as one of many emotions, like anger, joy, sadness, guilt, fear, etc. Essentially, it is the feeling or urge to do something. A motivated person will say the she did it because she ‘felt like it’. Thus, when a parent expresses that they are having a difficult time motivating their kids, I ask them to consider that they are wanting to ‘cause’ their kids to ‘feel’ like working- to want to. Parents sometimes think that that sounds silly or idealistic, and yet it is actually what we want for our kids. We know that when a person has come to want to work in their life it is because they have come to associate much of their self-worth and affiliation with shared accomplishment and learning. They connect feeling good about themselves with accomplishment and achievement.

This orientation to motivation has a number of important components that are helpful. First, emotions are reactive responses. This means that emotions occur in reaction to specific triggers or circumstances. These triggers or circumstances are certainly subjective and can be internal as well as external for any person. Everybody sees things differently. For example, you might be with a group of friends at a point in which one shares a dirty joke. Several in the group laugh, several are offended and one or two don’t get it. Why the differences in response? Obviously, yet importantly, because individual perceptions of humor and appropriateness are unique to each person. So it is with motivation! What is motivating for one individual may or may not be motivating for another. What motivated your oldest child may have little or no effect with a younger child. To arouse motivation in someone we must know what their unique perceptions of tasks and circumstances are and what will make these more attractive.

What is extremely important in this context is grasping that to know someone this well and to be able to motivate them accordingly requires that we are intimately significant to the people we are trying to motivate- this means close and important. How else are we to be aware of their perceptions and desires? In truth, motivating people is emotional manipulation. To manipulate someone’s emotions requires that we really matter to the individual. People who do not have emotional importance to each other are not likely to have emotional affects upon each other. Equally important, emotional impact is quickly and significantly diminished with emotional distance. This is very important. Parents who are not emotionally close to their children will have will have more difficulty effectively motivating them. Similarly, this is true for teachers, employers, ministers and anyone else who aspires to influence the lives of others.

Students of all ages demonstrate the impact of ‘liking’ a teacher (or other adult) with regard to working for/cooperating with them. What is frustrating for many parents is that poster people and peers are seemingly more influential in a child’s life than parents. This is because the ‘poster’ person or peer has come to have more intimate significance than the parent. The child actually ‘feels’ closer to the celebrity they have never met than to his own parents. With so many parents struggling with busy schedules and so many other commitments, this is increasingly common.

One short lived and destructive method of becoming emotionally significant with children is to become dangerous- emotionally or physically. Contrary to some adult’s expectations, few children sustain constructive, healthy motivation out of fearing someone’s wrath. Certainly, good business managers do not attempt to motivate their employees in this way. The effects upon morale and performance are all too clear and well documented. During, and certainly after, the middle school years, attempts to motivate children with intimidation only result in power struggles and retaliation. During this process, labels of ‘lazy,’ ‘failure’ and ‘family screw-up’ are earned. Once earned, these labels can take on a life of their own that cuts off motivation.

Approaches to motivation must minimize conflict and tensions between ourselves and those we wish to motivate. Patterns of unresolved, painful conflict force distance between individuals. Emotional distance interferes with our ability to arouse motivation and may even set the stage for negative, attention seeking behaviors, like work refusal.

Motivation reflects, and is dependent upon, desire. There are many potential desires within a child. What are your child’s most important desires? The motivation most sought within children is that which stems from desires accomplishment and positive self-esteem. Motivation reflective of angry desires, i.e. retaliation, does not contribute to these qualities. Importantly, emotions compete for space and attention within individuals. There is only so much ‘room at the inn’, meaning that when a person is consumed with anger, hurt and fear, there is little room for motivation to arise and influence behavior.

So far we have covered five important points: a) emotions function as reactions to perceived circumstances, b) everyone reacts to things differently, c) to influence someone’s emotional reactions, we have to be intimately significant in their lives, d) fear and motivation are not the same and are not compatible functions and e) effective means of motivating people will be relevant to their personal desires and aspirations.

Now, let’s look more closely at the issue of personal cues that trigger motivation. What is the magic of video games that seems to motivate kids so intensively? And not only to want to play them, but to master them as well? If one looks at video games and how they are set up, there are at least three important dynamics that arouse the motivation to play them.

First, the pleasure and stimulation of video game involvement is literally only seconds away. The push of a button renders their availability. There is little or no set up, no lengthy building of strategy, not much to have to put away, etc. Immediate gratification at its finest.

Second, video games are, in and of themselves, entertaining in a manner that is challenging. They involve characters, action, color, sound, gadgets and control. Even if one is not proficient, there is much to be enjoyed just in the playing. Reward is immediate and enthusiastic and even small increases in proficiency can be exciting and confidence building. Emotion is drawn to a pitch throughout the course of one’s involvement. Video games are also popular. Thus, they can be shared with friends and one’s prowess can be a source of recognition and esteem amongst peers. Most games have increasing levels of difficulty and one can build his/her proficiency many times over within the same game. Video games inherently include several important types of reinforcement- sensory gratification, mastery and affiliation.

Finally, video games are safe. If at first you don’t succeed, you can try, try again without being graded and letting people down. One has an endless number of chances to get better and can do so in the privacy of their own room. One’s pace of improvement is not necessarily compared to others. Thus, one’s ability level never has to be made public and when it does, proficiency can already be established. The potential for feeling bad about yourself in developing your skills in video games is far less than in building skills with school work, athletics or other skills. Moreover, via the internet, there are video games that are played by literally thousands of people at the same time. Thus, one can come to feel a sense of belonging or comradery with a world of people who share passion for a particular game.

With these dynamics, video games win in the battle against motivation’s most likely competing emotion, that of frustration. As we consider how to apply some of these dynamics to enhance motivation, we are essentially considering how to compete with- or otherwise manage/reduce- frustration.

What can we learn and draw from these video game qualities that can be useful in our efforts to enhance a child’s motivation toward what are clearly less fun and exciting involvements. How can we build these components into the activities about which we wish to motivate our children? Parents and teachers who are most successful in motivating kids do build in these components, often without even realizing it.

Consider the ease of access to gratification. The younger the child, the more important this dynamic. How can you make gratification in a child’s tasks more accessible? You can find answers to this by creatively participating with the child. Participating and expressing pleasure with a child in getting started, reorganizing large assignments into small pieces before a child is overwhelmed, acting out concepts and using materials to make ideas more tangible, or setting up fun games and contests between peers and siblings are all means of facilitating a child’s access to gratification. Children are naturally curious and open to learning, but they are not naturally able to get through tedium to the ‘heart’ of an activity.

Their development of this ability requires our intimate involvement. It won’t be very easy to facilitate a child’s access to gratification if we’re not there to participate nor emotionally in tune with the child’s feelings about what she needs to do. Sending kids off to do their work alone, particularly with younger children, is a sure-fire way for both of you to end up frustrated with each other. Patience, creativity, and personal participation are necessary. You will find that many children learn to make things pleasurable on their own if they are repeatedly helped to understand how this creativity is a part of getting things done.

This is not to suggest that we are to do a child’s work for them. Rather, I am strongly stating that when children feel our presence in their activity, it is easier for them to feel encouraged and get through whatever frustrations are involved in the tasks at hand. When we check in with kids as they do their work, help them get organized, bring an unexpected snack to the scene, keep a positive, compassionate attitude towards them, or unexpectedly compliment them for trying, we expedite and sustain the gratifications (reinforcements) necessary for arousing and sustaining motivation.

Children and adolescents take things very personally. It has been my experience time and again that so many underachieving students and other ‘lazy’ kids carry on as they do because they feel essentially alone in their efforts. Our attention and participation can be meaningful sources of gratification where other gratifications would not exist. Most children do not do homework or other types of work for their sake or for the sake of the work. They tend to do it, or not, because of where they wish to stand with the intimately significant people around them. The closer and more involved a parent or teacher is with a child, the more likely they are to be high on the list of intimately important people who influence a child’s perceptions of the value and pleasure of things to be done.

By providing creative enthusiasm of our own and trying to make that contagious we can raise the ‘fun factor’ in tasks for our children. In effect, we can make work something to look forward to because of how we influence the circumstances around work. In over twenty years of doing the work that I do, I have met only a few parents who could make algebra fun. However, I have met many parents who are fun to do algebra around.

Parents of children learning musical instruments can make practicing more fun by adding new components, i.e. karaoke style play along tapes, ‘jam’ sessions with other kids, working up original melodies or impromptu family concerts at special events. In today’s musical world, virtually any instrument can be used in any kind of music. Often kids learn instruments, particularly piano and band/orchestra instruments, through music to which they would not otherwise listen nor share with their friends. You can often find contemporary music for these instruments such alternatives can be blended into practice time, making it more fun.

A sense of humor about frustration and the mundane can be invaluable in decreasing frustration and making things more fun. Frankly, it makes any type of work more approachable. Making things fun is an art, but not one requiring special training. Fun people make things fun. How do you lighten you own sense of burden and frustration? What works for you may well give clues to how you can help lighten those feelings for your child. Teenagers can take themselves so seriously. A light hearted parent who is not mocking nor sarcastic can really help in lowering frustrations.

Be a ‘fun’ person when you are trying to motivate your children. Use age appropriate ways of lightening the mood and defusing frustration. Never forget a sense of humor or words of encouragement and shared success, especially when progress with difficult tasks is slow. Frustration and enthusiasm are both contagious and they are naturally exclusive. Choose one and choose carefully!

Intertwined in this area of entertainment value, or the ‘fun factor,’ is the understanding we carry of self-discipline. Often self-discipline and motivation are confused. They are not the same. If motivation is the experience of emotional desire for a task triggered by dynamics in and around the task, then self-discipline is the ability to anticipate and accept delays in reward and still press forward with a task, gaining the good feelings of accomplishment or success at a later time. Motivation is doing things because you feel like it. Self-discipline is doing things whether you feel like it or not! Self-discipline is a skill associated with maturity and is dependent upon having accumulated a trust in success through effort.

Finally, we must address the issue of emotional safety in task involvement. Getting involved with homework or other responsibilities means being involved with people who value it. For children caught in troubled relationships with their parents and teachers, healthy motivation may be hard to muster. Often we see extremes of over or underachievement associable with strained personal relations. Underachievers often refuse ‘to try’ because they believe it won’t make any difference to their image within the family or peer group. Overachievers often offer an interesting example at the other extreme. They compulsively apply themselves for rewards that only occasionally make a significant impact in their relationships. Either pattern can be unhealthy and both can facilitate long-term problems with self-esteem and capacities for intimacy.

Separation of personal worth from ability is a valuable element in raising motivation. Children are almost always more motivatable when they feel secure in their relations. Knowing one will always be loved and cared about, and treated that way, regardless of one’s abilities, makes it easier to try. Comparisons between siblings are a common factor in this regard, sometimes because of the comparisons that parents might make and at other times because of the comparing a child does. When a child sees themselves in a negative light within the family, make every effort to calm this so that emotional safety can be regained and motivation returned.

One’s personal connection with important people is an ageless dynamic that has significant impact on behavior through perceptions of what is worth doing. Everyone needs to feel good enough for someone and too often what blocks a youngster’s motivation is the perception that they can’t be good enough. “Why try, no matter how well I do it won’t be good enough…” is a frequent lament I hear from underachievers. Worse yet, in the eyes of many kids, doing well might cost them what few affiliations they feel they have within their peer group.

This can be relevant within any circle of relationships. Unfortunately, many kids experience conflict between groups as to what is valued or not. Pleasing one’s parents with improved performance may well leave some kids feeling abandoned or ridiculed by peers. Such tensions are not easily resolved. Few children actually want to fail or do poorly and even fewer want to be alone. When attempting to motivate children in more productive directions it is imperative to be aware of how they see themselves and how they believe they are seen by others. When there is reason to believe children see themselves as the family screw-up and that there is nothing they can do to change that, motivating them towards improved effort will have to involve improving their position within the family. In many cases, this requires reaching out to children in ways that have no direct connection to their tasks and achievements. Rather, spending time affirming their importance in the family may have to take more immediate priority.

In sum, while there is no one simple method with which to motivate children towards their responsibilities, there are clearly important dynamics that can be used to create a variety of effective interventions. Most importantly, motivation is a personal experience that must be handled as such. To attempt to motivate individuals without a personal approach that validates their worth and assures their safety is not likely to sustain success. Many children are approached with systems of reward or threats that do not emphasize a relationship that supports their worth. Ultimately, on their own these methods fail. Certainly, it is important to tie behavior to consequences. Just don’t override the entirely relationship with that dynamic.

Stay creative. Use your imagination to enhance the attractiveness of tasks and use your heart to build warmth and patience into the equation. Put yourself into the shoes of your targeted youngster. Treat them as you would want to be treated. When you loose patience or get frustrated step back. Seek helpful ideas from a friend, teacher, school counselor or even a qualified counselor. Always stay cognizant of the possibility of confounding problems that may not be readily apparent. Learning disabilities, social problems, recent life changes can all block motivation. And never give up. Kids read adults like books and by an early age are well in tune with the indicators of anger, despair and frustration. When they read our surrender, it will likely engender theirs.

E-mail: ken@frontlinefamily.com