‘Rewards ignore the reasons your child doesn’t want to participate’
IT’S time we put the idea of the carrot and the stick well behind us when it comes to motivating our children, writes Dr Justin Coulson, and find out why they don’t want to participate and help them through it.
NSW
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How do you motivate kids?
It may be one of the biggest struggles parents and teachers experience.
We remind them to clean their room or do their schoolwork. They reply that it’s too hard.
We cajole them to turn off their screens and play outside or read a book. They reply that it’s boring.
We plead with them to do their chores and they whine, procrastinate and even ignore us.
Western society has adopted a standard approach to motivating our kids.
We motivate with carrots and sticks. For many the stick has fallen out of favour.
Today the focus is on the carrot, or the rewards.
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Reward charts proliferate — stuck to our walls, cupboard doors and refrigerators.
“Do as I say and I’ll give you a star. Get enough stars and I’ll give you a goodie.”
That’s the carrot.
The stick is still there in the carrot though. Implicit in the promise of reward is the threat of punishment.
Offering bribes (or threats) usually leads to desired behaviour.
For instance, Mum implements a reward system to “motivate” the kids to clean their room. She soon finds that room cleaning has improved enormously.
Backslapping and high-fives ensue. It MUST be working!
Eventually, however, one of two things usually happen.
First, the reward system is taken away. Suddenly the room cleaning behaviour stops.
The reward system starts again and results improve.
Surely this proves a reward system will motivate our children to do what we want?
Nope.
The fact that a token, bribe or threat gets a child (or an employee) to engage in a specific behaviour only when the reward is offered highlights that we have not solved the motivation issue at all. They’re not motivated to do the task one bit.
Rewards may control children’s behaviour in the immediate context, but studies show they can (and do) have negative consequences for interest, engagement, motivation and even wellbeing.
As an aside, many parents have emphasised rewards and discovered that children become remarkably creative in their attempts to minimise the efforts required to gain their reward. “Clean your room and I’ll give you five bucks,” often leads to a quick job where clothes are shoved under beds or other convenient hidey-holes.
The focus becomes, “What’s in it for me?” There’s no internal motivation for the task at all. The motivation is to get the goodie.
The same thing has happened where rewards are employed in education, for example, receiving pizza vouchers for reading books. More books are read. But the quality of the books chosen is low.
The second reliable outcome of rewarding people is that the reward eventually becomes insufficient. Our children become habituated to the reward. Entitlement ensues. Then their expectation increases. ‘‘I want more.”
We need to understand the reasons for the lack of ‘motivation’.
While we are busy handing out tokens and rewards, we are ignoring the reasons your child doesn’t want to participate
You see, rewards and punishments ignore what’s going on for the person struggling with motivation.
We see them refusing to attend school or do their chores and our response is to reward or punish them.
Instead, perspective is needed. What are their challenges? Why are they lacking intrinsic motivation? Is the task really boring? Or is there something else going on?
Ask your kids, ‘What’s really getting in your way here?’
When we genuinely understand their challenge, we typically find that it’s not going to be fixed by a goodie.
They say things like, “It’s boring,” and a reward isn’t going to remedy this.
Rewards don’t make things interesting. They simply shift the focus from the task to the reward.
They might complain, “I don’t understand,” or “It’s too hard.”
Rewards aren’t the answer here either.
Your child needs you to spend more time helping them with the task.
Perhaps they’re self-conscious and worried that if they try something in front of others they’ll fail and look foolish.
A reward doesn’t fix that.
While we are busy handing out tokens and rewards, we are ignoring the reasons your child doesn’t want to participate. Rewards won’t solve his problem.
We need to focus less on behaviours and more on obstacles to desired behaviours.
Are they tired? Lonely? Stressed? Is it too hard? Does it seem to lack meaning?
Addressing the obstacles requires us to consider how we might be contributing to the problem and work creatively with our child to find ways around the obstacles.
Is the work we are asking them to do meaningful to them?
What else? Give them a choice. Being able to choose what they’ll do leads to automatic increases in motivation.
Why? Your child feels volitional.
He is actually choosing for himself. If your child doesn’t want to choose because nothing is appealing, we can consider whether our requests are reasonable.
If they are, we move to the next idea.
Build the relationship.
People work hard for those they love.
A child who never liked science will turn out incredible projects when a new teacher inspires them. When a child feels our concern for their welfare, they trust us. They are open to our influence.
We can guide them more successfully.
Finally, recognise that when a child feels competent, they are going to be more motivated.
Our job is to build their sense of mastery so they feel the things we invite them to do are achievable.
If you must offer a reward, make it unexpected.
And assure your child it isn’t going to be a regular thing.
When it comes to motivating our kids, our focus is misdirected. Our question should not be “How motivated are you?” but “How are you motivated?”
When we create conditions for motivation to be autonomous, we’ll never need to “motivate” our children again.