8 Ways to Motivate Your Kids

What’s the best way to motivate kids? It is necessary to start action from infancy, and parents can encourage their children from an early age and promote their children’s active learning motivation.

1.Follow your baby

 

 

Babies are naturally inclined towards novelty, and they will stay away from overly familiar objects, but also away from overly complicated new things. Raise their interests with new things, choose objects around their interests and interact with them.

 

2.Stimulate curiosity

 

 

Even infants love to explore new things—especially those that are novel and exciting. Children sometimes like to drop objects on the ground, trying to see what happens to the object next. Choosing toys with different textures, colors, shapes or sounds can enhance the development of their senses.

 

3.Encourage children to engage in fun exploration games

 

 

 

Children of all ages spontaneously engage in play whenever they have the opportunity. The main purpose of play is to promote learning opportunities. Play is motivating, it provides novel experiences and opportunities to learn from others, it requires active participation of children, it can strengthen social skills and reduce stress. We also provide children with time and space to play in their busy schedules, because “playing games” is an important experience for children’s growth and development.

4.Pay attention to social interaction in the learning process

 

 

 

In the electronic age, there are many educational programs designed specifically for children, even for toddlers as young as 6 months old. However, even the best-designed and most effective apps cannot replace social interaction with parent and friend entities. In today’s society, young children can learn through touch-screen tablets, etc. In this learning experience, social interaction is equally important.

5.Give your child a challenge

 

 

 

 

Set goals with your children to make them more motivated and oriented to work towards their goals. From infancy, it takes effort to maintain motivation. When the task is too easy, they lose motivation, but when the task is too difficult to succeed, they lose their original motivation. Video games are making effective use of this set of learning principles, increasing the level of challenge according to each child’s abilities. Try to pick the right challenge based on your child’s existing abilities and provide timely feedback on your child’s performance.

6.Give your child a voice

 

 

 

 

When children have a degree of freedom, they are more motivated and engaged to choose tasks that are more meaningful to them. When children can make their own choices, it makes them more likely to remain engaged. Take advantage of your child’s natural curiosity and range of ability to achieve your goals, if you can, rather than promise rewards.

 

7.Offer rewards only when necessary

 

 

 

When we over-praise a child’s intelligence, skills, and achievements, make the child measure success or failure in grades. Children may be motivated to want more in return, but they may also shy away from activities they are not good at for fear of negative reviews. As children grow up, performance stress at school increases, which, in addition to less fun in learning, can lead to depression and anxiety. When we praise children’s efforts, we understand and recognize the efforts behind them, and suggest ways to improve more effectively, rather than just focusing on results and scores. This will make children more motivated to study hard and believe they will be more determined to follow their goals.

8.Maintain close parent-child relationships with adolescents

 

 

 

Adolescence is an adventurous and breakthrough time for many young people, and trends largely reflect a preference for exciting new experiences that can greatly enhance learning opportunities and make children more independent. Teens become more motivated to gain peer recognition, and some follow risk-taking leaders. But teens with close family ties are less risk-taking and, because of parental support and concern, have relatively fewer behavioral problems, including less substance abuse and crime. Families need empathy and support, knowing that young people are going through changes in their minds, bodies and social relationships that may make them attractive to risk-taking behaviours. Families should maintain close communication with their children and pay close attention to their every move and their physical and mental development.

 

 

Wrriten By：🌰栗子媽媽
Article Source：https://developingchild.harvard.edu/
Photo：Unsplash