Motivation, incentive, desire to Learn

WE have dealt with learning, cognitive strategies and metacognition, all powerful tools for learning. Now, we come to a critical issue, the motivation to learn and to think critically. Knowing what is being learned, and using cognitive strategies and metacognition to facilitate and expedite learning is important and useful. Yet, the eagerness with which your child approaches learning will be a function of his motivation, his attitudes and his dispositions to learn. These attitudes are not innate, they are not inborn. They must be developed. Where? At home, with the help of the family, by the extended family, by related institutions.

The engine that moves your child’s learning is his or her motivation. You, as a parent, must start the engine and power it.

Extrinsic motivation: First eat your peas and then you can have some ice cream

We have established that motivating your child to learn is important. In this regard, the principle of rewards and punishments is pivotal. There is a relationship between an event and the stimulus or its reward. This is sometimes referred to as a “contingency which means that one event or stimulus or reward is dependent upon another. A friend of mine referred to this as the “grandmother’s rule: “first eat your peas and then you can have some ice cream.”

Children respond quite well to rewards. If you offer a reward for some specific behaviour, your child most probably will respond in a positive manner. The contingency is, “If you do this for me, I will give you something or do something for you or allow you to do something you wish to do.”

If you say to your child, first do your homework and then you can watch TV for 30 minutes, that is a direct contingency: TV (reward) is contingent upon doing homework (the task).

If your child asks for permission to go out to ride her bike, you can ask if the homework (or other relevant task) is finished and if not state the contingency, “First finish your homework and then you may go to ride your bike.”

To teach your child how to develop self-monitoring of motivation and progress, it is useful to show them little actions they can take to help, such as:

• Set a deadline, a point at which the task should be done.

• Communicate the deadline to others (which increases the sense of duty).

• Break the task into parts and select an easy part to help her get started.

• Teach her to reward herself after each significant part is completed (“I did it!”).

• Teach her to remove herself from distraction, get into an environment that facilitates study (turn off the TV; find a quiet place, etc.).

What are your child’s interests? Can they work as motivators?

The second part of overt motivation is the subject of interests which are powerful motivators but are often difficult to develop. Many interests are simply part of a child’s life. Eating, drinking soda, playing in the playground, spending time with mom and dad are rather reliable interests of most children. Unfortunately, some fairly negative stimuli also are interesting to children such as watching TV, eating too many snacks, playing video games, chattering on the phone, etc. Developing positive and useful interests requires time and attention, like, for example,

• reading a book or story to your child each night as part of the going to bed routine.

• getting your children to listen to good music.

• to watch good age appropriate TV programs and movies.

• to look at educational pages on internet, etc.

• to avoid time-wasters like video games, rap music, etc.

Encourage your child to talk about what she likes and dislikes. Watch her as she copies your behaviour and your likes and dislikes as they become part of hers. Have you asked her what she likes? Does she like dinosaurs, animals, dolls, clothes, princess stories, ballet, music, swimming, bike riding? Ask things like:

• What do you want to be when you grow up?

• If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

• Is reading important to you?

• Do you like reading by yourself?

• What kind of games do you like to play?

• Do you have a hero or a favorite person?

• Who are your best friends?

• “Don’t you just love this music?”

• “When the family likes something I have cooked, I feel so good.”

Use praise to focus your child’s attention on their own task-relevant behavior.

Self-image

Self-image is the child (or person) trying to answer the question, “Who Am I?” Obviously, most of that answer comes directly from the child’s relations with her parents and family. The image a child has of herself is very much a matter of how he or she has been treated by the family. If the family has always been primarily supportive and loving, the child most likely will have a positive image of herself. If the family has been too strict, too absent (father and mother working and with limited time at home) the child’s image of self may be less strong, complicated, or diminished.

Your child’s self-image in relation to learning will mostly be a combination of your support and her success. A good self-image actually comes from be able to do things. Parents should help their children to be successful at many things: reading, writing, math, dancing, playing the piano or violin, baseball, football, basketball, chess, and in the process praise the children for their accomplishments. The joy that children feel when they can successfully perform is a major reward for them and the recognition and praise of their parents is almost as strong a reward. Together, they are powerful.

There are some basic rules that parents can use to stimulate high self-efficacy in their children. The first rule is to model effective behaviour.

The second rule is more concrete.

• Set reasonable expectations for your child, assign tasks and responsibilities that are within her existing capabilities but at the same time create a small challenge.

• monitor and assist your child to achieve the tasks.

• provide feedback on the degree of effectiveness.,

• provide praise and maybe rewards for successful completion.

A third suggestion is to use the concept of metacognition directly in relation to self-esteem. For example, ask your child,

• What has your teacher told you that you do well?

• What have your friends told you that you do well?

• What have your other adults told you that you do well?

• What do you enjoy doing because you know you do it well?

Teach your child anxiety and stress management

Life is full of moments of anxiety and stress for all of us. As you attempt to teach your child to think well, stress and anxiety will occur. For example, if you push your child too hard to learn something new or to solve a new problem, he or she may feel stress or anxiety. She wants to live up to your expectations and worries that she will not and that you might love her less.

Your child or other children you know (like your child’s classmates) may suffer from anxieties related to learning and testing. It is typical to hear them say things like:

• I worry about the possibility of having to repeat the year.

• My worries about doing badly interfere with my concentration when I take tests.

• I am easily distracted when I try to study – cell phone, TV and other things.

• I am not able to concentrate well when I am nervous, in a bad mood or depressed,

• I get very scared and nervous when I have to take important tests.

In highly competitive societies these worries lead to sickness and even suicides.

It seems clear that you would like to have your child be reasonably sensitive to her environment but also be able to cope easily with minor or even major stress.

Attribution of Control: How to make your child take responsibility

We all go through life trying to figure out why things happen and what causes them. Sometimes we take responsibility for what happens and sometimes we blame others. A typical example of this is school grades on tests. Your child comes home with a good grade and says “I got an A on the test!” She comes home with a bad grade and says “The teacher gave me a D on the test.” She claims responsibility when it is a good outcome and blames the teacher when it is a bad outcome.

As a parent, you can have a major influence on your students’ development of attribution. The practice is clear. Emphasise your child’s efforts and ability and avoid attribution to external factors. If your child tells you he got lucky, correct him and tell him that his result came from his efforts. Among things you can do are:

• Make sure that assignments, tasks, test, etc., that you give him, are challenging, not easy but also not too difficult.

• Encourage your child to understand that it is her personal effort that leads to success and always reward strong efforts and persistence.

• Encourage your child to realize that she has sufficient ability and talent to achieve her academic goals, “You can do it!”.

The issue of attribution is important. Each child needs to develop a sense of responsibility for what he or she does, and an ability to know when results are to their credit and when they are to their blame. It is a fundamental role of the parents to insure that this sense of responsibility is developed. The kind of questions parents should ask here include,

• did you really try hard?

• are you sure you gave it all the effort you had?

• did you study enough before the test?

• why do you think the teacher gave you a bad grade?

• did you break that toy?

• are you being honest with yourself?

Affective Awareness: How you feel about what you know

You not only know what you know but you should also know how you feel about what you know, how you feel about learning, how you react to teachers and others (boss, wife, friends, etc.), how you motivate yourself, how you assume responsibility and related issues. And you should think about these concepts because you will want to teach and stimulate them in your children. Your child is an active agent who is engaged in her own development and can make things happen through her actions. These actions will be guided primarily by emotional variables, how they develop and how they impinge upon your child.

As a parent should try to get your child to recognise and talk about his or her emotions. Start by asking questions.

• How are you feeling today?

• Were you happy with the grade you got on your test?

• Did you get scared when you saw that bog dog barking?

• Do you enjoy playing with your classmates?

Careful attention to these six affective areas will help you to help your child to build stronger and more persistent motivation and desire to learn.

Next week: The intellectual standards for thinking or, how to insure the quality of your child’s thinking.