When Kids Check Out: Understanding Motivation (and How Parenting Coaching Can Help Parents Do Something About It)
Few things are more frustrating—or more frightening—for parents than watching a bright child lose their spark. Whether it’s missing homework, low effort, or total disinterest in school, a lack of motivation can trigger deep fears about academic failure and long-term success. As a parenting coach let me share what might really be going on beneath the surface, the role we might be playing in our kids’ apathy, and how to support your child in rediscovering their drive—without constant nagging or battles. Hope, strategy, and encouragement await!
While there are many external reasons—technology and Covid topping the list—while kids today may be less motivated than a decade ago, here I want to address the role parents play in shutting their kids’ spark and aliveness down.
A Lack of efficacy and Autonomy leads to a lack of motivation
Self-efficacy is a critical idea when it comes to motivation. Efficacy has to do with knowing that you are able to do something. We see this in little babies as they discover that when they hit the mobile, they make it move. That is an exciting and highly stimulating moment in a baby’s development. Looking for opportunities to have an effect in the world is a lot of what the 0-3 years are about and ties in with a child’s growing sense of personhood: I am my own person; I have power; I can make things happen.
As knowing about oneself that, “I am powerful,” is a basic human need, the drive to be able to do things oneself can be great. Remember you toddler saying, “Me do. Me do” (or just Me!).
Given opportunities to explore the world and make things happen, children continue to have this drive towards discovery of how they can wield their power. In an ideal world, we wouldn’t have to plan to teach children anything: In the process of exploring the world and seeing how it works, they would want to themselves be able to do what we do (use a knife, read and write, work the toaster, follow a map, etc.). Sadly, because we don’t have an adult/child ratio which favors supporting this kind of learning, children get sent to schools, most of which are still set up like automated factories that suck a child’s natural curiosity right out.
Wise teachers and parents continue to structure learning as a great adventure and include in their lessons both reasons for engaging in the activity and enough autonomy that the child feels they have control.
A good example of this would be creating a card for Mother’s Day. The reason for the card is clear: We love our moms and want to honor them. There is also room for autonomy as each child is writing something personal.
Criticism gets in the way of motivation.
Criticism gets in the way of motivation.
Now let’s say that upon receiving the card, Mom comments on the messy hand writing or the poor spelling or the less than perfect art work. A child’s delight in mastering and creating will be squelched. As a parent, you will have missed a critical opportunity to develop a love of communication.
Instead, please, express your delight in your child’s work. Express your pleasure in reading your child’s warm wishes. Express your pride in their expression.
Please, even if the work is below what you know a child of their age can produce—or even what they have produced in the past—focus on the positive.
That will have them wanting to engage in the task (and tasks like that) again. That might even motivate them to write to someone else (Perhaps Grandma in New York would like a card).
Try the 90/10 rule for feedback
When you are overwhelmingly positive about what a child has produced, it puts you in a much better position to ask your child, “are you open to a little feedback?” The chances will be much higher that the answer is yes.
To put that in mathematical terms, let’s try out what that might sound like:
You got nine problems correct! Wow, you really focused and worked hard.
What do you think happened on the one you got wrong?
With the affirmation of what went well front loaded, followed by an open-ended question rather than the adult sweeping in and telling the child what they did wrong, the child’s natural drive to get it right (because getting it right is having power over it) will assert itself, and they will likely go back and look at the problem again, reviewing their process in their mind.
If a child says, “I don’t know” to what might have gone wrong, then a parent can review the child’s process on the other problems: What did you do on this problem to get it right?
I’m betting that as a child explains what they did to get it right, they will jump to checking the missed problem on their own, motivated to make the correction, confident they have the tools to get the right answer.
I love the teachable moment. But parents have to keep in mind how many corrections a kid gets a day. You do not have to correct every mistake today! Trust that your child will improve step by step, supported by your delight in their effort and progress.
We worked hard on that! (stop doing for your children)
When a parent comes to discuss a grade with a teacher and comments, “We work hard on that!”, the teacher takes that to mean, “Getting my kid to work on this assignment was like pulling teeth, and I worked really hard to get something up to my standards turned in.” While as a parent, I get the temptation to keep the educational wheel turning, what most parents don’t realize is that not only are you robbing you child the learning of the lesson at hand, worse, you are sucking your child dry of drive and motivation.
As soon as a parent works harder than the child, it sends the message to the child that doing the work is not about the process or the learning: It is about getting the work done and turned in.
Too many students have told me some variation of “My parent cares more about what the grades look like that what I have actually learned.”
It’s okay if your children’s work looks inept and messy: It is far better that the work comes from them—their focus, their persistence, their creativity—and look messy than that you rob them of respecting the work they are able to do on their own.
Get comfortable with your children’s failure: Handled properly, it is where the gold lies.
Everything is an opportunity for learning: Your child fails to do an assignment. Okay. Talk to your child. Did they forget completely? Did they struggle to get started? Did they start and then find it too challenging? Or, perhaps, it was not challenging enough, and they lost interest. Supporting your child in this reflection is a hundred times more important than whatever the assignment was actually about.
Getting curious about your child’s process helps you identify what kind of learner your child is. Knowing what kind of learner they are, allows you to identify strategies that will support them from first getting the assignment to turning it in.
Learning styles are personal. When an individual finds out their learning style, they can get creative about approaching each and every assignment in their own way: That’s autonomy. Even if it is only the decision of how to chunk the assignment, what order to do it in or when to work on it, getting to make decisions about your own learning is motivating. The learner has a sense of ownership and control over their educational journey.
With apathetic students it is hard to develop intrinsic motivation, but it is possible!
If you have been being the organizer and driver of all school work, it will take a while for your child to shift towards seeing themselves as a learner in charge of their own school experience. Frankly, letting go and being okay with your child turning in incomplete and subpar work will probably be very hard for you, too.
If you would like support and account ability in shifting how you handle your child’s academic experience, a parent coach can be of great help.
I’d be delighted to discuss how I support parents with this on a complimentary Getting to Know You call.