motivation strategies

This movie that Jonathan decided to make is a reminder that motivation can be tied to anything that your child values.  What do they spend their free time doing?  How do they invest their time when nothing else is expected of them?  Making observations about these behaviors can do wonders in making sure that you are strategically spending your time and efforts in the best areas to ensure that your children value the goals that you help set for and with them to accomplish.

Here are some additional ideas to consider...

• View technology as a single bucket that they can "spend" in different ways.  Nintendo, Wii, Xbox, computer games, or watching movies or television all require similar brain activity and should not be viewed as separate rewards.  So if the child is allowed 20 or 30 minutes a day to use towards technology, they can choose from the various options to spend their time but, they may not do an excess amount of each one.
• If your child craves "alone time", they may be motivated to complete their work by starting a new book, looking forward to working on a new model airplane kit, or working on an art project.
• Children who desire social interaction with others may be motivated by tying their school work requirements to club or sporting activities that they regularly attend.

The point is to discover what makes each of your kids "tick" so that you know just what will help them budget their time, achieve their goals, and feel rewarded in the process!

For more help on this topic, check out the title called Personality Plus for Parents: Understanding What Makes Your Child Tick by Florence Littauer. Many years ago, I used the original Personality Plus book to help "figure out" my boys and now they have structured it to read more specifically for parents and their children.