Is Any Child Actually Unmotivated?

In the previous post we looked how the roots of missing motivation go deep, and aren't just caused by kids having a "bad attitude". Another way to view this is that children cannot be unmotivated across the board. All of us can only be motivated or unmotivated in reference to particular tasks. So in this sense these kids are only unmotivated to do the sort of school work that they are being asked to do. Most schools, for a wide array of reasons, don’t do nearly enough to engage the child’s imagination or buy in. Not that I'm saying this is easy to do. But there are many charter schools and alternative schools that do a far better job of engaging the child by finding out what he is interested in, and collaboratively coming up with meaningful projects for him from there. This was John Dewey’s huge contribution to education. Doing math on a ditto is altogether less meaningful than doing math to solve a problem you’re interested in, like say calculating how many schools supplies you would want to buy to open a school store.

Or yet another angle to look at this from is that in a sense we are all motivated across the board in one sense, to make sense of the world, to preserve our self-concept and to protect ourselves emotionally. Lots of this sort of motivation occurs below the conscious level. From this angle engaging the unmotivated student involves finding out what sorts of topics she tends to find meaningful and proposing projects that would help her to explore these areas.

In regard to the emotional aspects, it inolves learning to talk with her in ways that support her opening up and taking a chance rather than keeping herself up inside her shell where it makes sense from her perspective to be, since it seems to her that exposing her wishes, interests and dreams will only result in more pain as it has in the past.

Unmotivated Kids

In my estimation this is a very wise thought by Charles Fay, PhD from the Love and Logic Institute. Seeing kids like this as manipulative and willful misses an awful lot of what is going on. In addition to the emotions that Charles addresses below, there are also a lot of lagging skills and unsolved problems that are often keeping the child trapped in the "unmotivated" state:

In approximately 99% of cases, the child's lack of motivation results from far more than simple laziness or a conscious desire to act out. The roots of apathy go far deeper, into feelings of frustration, anger, hopelessness, lack of control, or loss. The majority of these feelings lay at the subconscious level, where they wreak havoc on a child's ability to engage in higher-level thinking tasks, such as sustained attention to detail, problem-solving, memory, perseverance, and self-control.

This is why punishing children for getting bad grades usually backfires. Since they are already feeling bad about life, how is making them feel worse about it going to get them motivated to succeed?

…rather than making it worse with anger, lectures, threats and punishments. At the core of what we teach is the importance of loving kids for who they are…rather than who we want them to be. Yes! The healing process begins when we end the power struggle by saying, "We will love you no matter how well or poorly you do in school. Your grades are your grades…not ours. That's why we are no longer going to fight with you about them. Just let us know how we can help."

What are your thoughts on what's going on with these kids?

Guest Post Over at Parent Talk Today

I've recently added a link to a very useful parenting site Parent Talk Today  by a friend, Kathy Sena, a seasoned journalist that covers parenting, lifestyle, women's issues and more for magazines you'll recognize like Women's Day and Family Circle, and for newspapers like the Chicago Tribune and the L.A. Times. You'll notice that I haven't yet linked to any other parenting sites since I'm a bit picky about whose stuff I "sign off on". 

Anyway, Kathy recently posted about an article by a friend of hers from the L.A. Times, "Should We Pay Our Kids to Learn?" I commented on the article and got a bit long winded and my comment ended up a few paragraphs long. Kathy is the kind of friend you want to have...instead of asking me not to clutter up her site with article length comments, she creatively turned my pontification about how we motivate kids to learn into a guest post. So here's a good excuse to head over and check out her site.

Bargaining on the Front End

Have you ever come home from work after a hard day and had your son asks you to do something with him that you really didn't want to do, but you did it anyway because you wanted to connect with him? After agreeing to the activity the child has in mind, and it is time to wrap up,it is pretty common for the child to say something along the lines of "How come you wont play longer?" in a tone that isn't exactly flowing with gratitude.

Now sometimes, of course, this is because the child is just right. We don't spend enough time with him. In future posts we'll look at some ways to make connecting with our kids more doable in ways that are fun for both of you. But other times it is more important to focus on the process of agreeing to the activity. The vignette described above is just one of multitudes of ways that we end up as parents getting into something and then feeling resentful at our kids when it could have gone much more smoothly with a little bargaining on the front end.

Bargaining on the front end can apply to anything from playing a game, to letting them watch a movie, to having a friend over. Here is an example of a mother using this idea with her daughter. Mom has some work that she needs to wrap up at the computer, but her eight year old daughter wants her to take a break to play some badminton, "Come on Mom" it will be fun." But mom remembers that last time that she played a game with her daughter she ended up getting a lot of attitude when it was time to wrap up. So instead of getting into the game only to feel frustrated and unappreciated when she needs to stop, she says something like this:

"Well let me see. If I can take a bit and put the work I'm doing on hold, what do you think I'm going to hear when I need to stop. Am I going to hear, 'Mom, you never play with me long enough. You're no fun at all'? Or will I hear something more like, 'Thanks for playing Mom. That was fun.'?"

The child will usually agree to the second option that involves using some social skills and expressing some appreciation. When we ask for that on the front end, the child agrees to the "terms" and in answering the question, the more prosocial words actually come "Up and Out" of their nervous system. Making it much more likely that those words will come to her. It also leaves the parent with more dignity. Reprimanding the child after the fact, rather than doing the bargaining on the front end feels mean spirited to the kid and doesn't do much for our parenting self-concept.

Now any kid worth keeping is often going to forget anyway. When she does, and starts off with "But you never play...", you can interrupt in a calm assertive tone, saying, "Ohhh. What did you say that I was going to hear?" For most kids that is enough to cue them and they'll slide right into the groove of expressing appreciation. When they do it is important to circle back and let them know..."Remember when you asked me to play catch with you, and I had to stop and get dinner going, and you said, thanks for playing. That really felt good. When I hear that it really makes me feel like playing more often." On the other hand, when that isn't enough to cue them, then you can wait until the next invite, and express some sadness..."Remember last time we played checkers, and when I had to stop, you scowled at me and kept that up for the next hour. I'm not sure I'm up for that today. But try me tomorrow. If you let me know what your plan is for that, I bet I'll feel more like playing.

So don't get into the activity and end up feeling resentful. Talk about the terms on the front end. Use "Up and Out of the Kid" to prime your child to be successful. And play more often.

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What You're Not Saying That Says So Much

Early in my teaching career I learned about a concept that first got me thinking seriously about just how important our use of language can be when talking to kids. I overheard a skilled, veteran teacher making a mistake with a kid. I remember clearly that it was a group of first graders walking down the hallway. One of the kids was messing around in line. His teacher walked up to him, took him by the arm and escorted him to the back of the line. While she was walking him, she said something along the lines of "Since you can't behave yourself, you can go to the end of the line." Even as inexperienced as I was at the time, it occurred to me, "You know, I think she just told that kid that he can't behave himself. I'm not sure that's really a message that is in her interest to give to him, much less in his interest." As I reflect on this, I think just hearing that interaction and realizing its importance was probably a major influence to my deciding to change my career to working more closely with children, families and adults as a parent coach and therapist.

Now like all of us, at some of my, shall we say, less than stellar moments, I make this exact sort of mistakes. Lots of times I'll even be aware that I'm doing it and still not be able to pull it together in the moment. What is going on in these interactions, often below the level of what is actually said, is that there is an implicit message. The gist of that message generally says one of two things. It says either, "You're a capable kid," or "You're not capable." Now any single sentence said to a child is not likely to harm her over the long term. The problem would seem to come from repeatedly hearing You're Not Capable messages, and hearing relatively few of the other sort.

To get more of a handle on this principle lets look at an example with a younger child. You could say, "If you don't start eating politely, you're going to be heading to your room." You could even add "Mr." to the end for emphasis. Not quite as bad as the one in the teacher example above, but still not in the You're Capable camp. An alternative way of saying something like this might be, "We'd love to have you eating here with us as long as you're using your manners." Notice that both ways of stating this are getting at setting the exact same limit with the child, about eating at the table. But the second not only sounds more inviting, it implies that the child has good manners and has an option of whether to use them or not. On a side note, it also sounds like the adult wants to be with him. Most importantly it implies that he's capable and in control of his behavior, a message we want him to hear again and again.

Another variation on the example above is to use the Up and Out of the Kid principle that I originally heard described by Betsy Geddes, a former Portland Elementary School principal and a colleague of Jim Fay's. I'd heard other use the strategy, but no one seemed to call it anything or have a name for it. I've used that phrase ever since to describe the idea to clients.

Up and Out means rather than simply telling a child something (which often tends to slide into unhelpful lectures filled with inadvertent You're Not Capable messages) asking a key question that brings the answer up and out of the child's nervous system. This might sound like, "Geoff, if the goofing around at the table continues, what's your best guess about what might happen?" said in a friendly, confident voice. This not only invites the child to think through likely results of his behavior giving a chance to change course, it also sends a subtle and powerful message, "Geoff, I think you are a responsible and smart enough kid that you can figure this out with just a brief prompt. I don't need to spell it out for a sharp kid like you."

A big way that you can incorporate this into your parenting or work with kids is to start out by just listening to how you and others talk. When you have a sense that a You're Not Capable message was imbedded in what was said, try to imagine what the alternative way of phrasing it might be. If you can't think of it in the moment, write it down and post it as a question in the comments section and we can brainstorm You're Capable alternatives right here at Awareness * Connection.

And don't get down on yourself when you find yourself giving your child You're Not Capable messages. The most highly trained of us still do it. We all do from time to time. The first and most important step is simply increasing awareness (note the name of the blog). If you give yourself credit for that first step of just awareness, you'll likely move on to become increasingly effective in communicating with children in ways that invite long term responsible behavior.

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Crucial Confrontations

I'm in the middle of a book called Crucial Confrontations about how to directly confront peers, supervisors, spouses, anyone when agreements aren't upheld, promises are broken, etc. I'm about half way through with it. I'm finding it quite good, the recommendations specific and realistic and the authors well versed in both psychology and social psychology. I'm already playing with a couple of the ideas. I'll provide a more thorough review soon. The tag line on the cover is "Never walk away from another conflict again."

Happy Halloween. Have fun and be safe out there tonight.

While We're At It: Praise that Doesn't Help

Since that sleep article of Po Bronson's was so good I checked out some more of his pieces. This previous one from New York Magazine on "How Not to Talk to Kids" is very solid as well. I have a lot more thoughts on what sort ways of talking to kids are helpful and which are counter productive that will show up on here eventually. But for now Bronson's piece nicely takes us through how our attempts to praise often end up getting in the way of our kids succeeding. For those of you who don't have time to read this now, I'll just say that it focuses on being specific and on praising effort rather than "being smart". There are measurable differences in the way kids respond to these ways of interacting with them. A focus on effort rather than on "innate intelligence" equips kids to keep at it when things get difficult. Kids who hear a focus on how "smart" they are rather on how hard they worked tend to give up when faced with a task that is challenging. This is even true of very intelligent kids. They are more apt to conclude that if they don't succeed right off the bat, it is evidence that they aren't all that smart, and it becomes too risky for them to persevere.

I recall an article from years ago that highlighted this difference between American and Japanese students. American students who ran into challenges were more likely to conclude they weren't smart enough, whereas Japanese students tended much more often to come to the conclusion that they needed to roll up their sleeves and work harder. And their tendency to move toward harder work translated into more academic success.

Photo by Phillip Toledano is from the New York Magazine article.

Beyond Lectures, Part 2

We looked last time at how lecturing, though it comes to us easily, isn't all that helpful to helping kids along the path to responsibility. In fact, I would agree with several folks in the business of working with families that kids who receive a lot of lectures actually tend to be less responsible. We also looked one of the best ways to avoid lecturing when we're frustrated with our kids' behavior, which is to wait until a time when we're both feeling calmer. Jim Fay's mnemonic suggestion for this is "Save the words for the happy times." I would add that just going for a more neutral time is often enough. Once you've used a little shared control to set up a time to talk, there are lots of alternatives on how to have a helpful conversation.

We know that it usually helps and almost never hurts to use some empathy. When someone has demonstrated that he can see our situation the way that we experience it, it is a human tendency to be more open to accepting influence from that person. This makes a good deal of sense. When we're pretty sure that someone has next to no idea what an experience is like for us, it simply wouldn't make a lot of sense to take advice from that person. Some empathy might sound something like this:

I'm guessing that getting chores done isn't one of the things that you look forward to when you get up...not one of the highlights of your day.

It probably isn't much fun having me getting cranky with you about your not getting them done.

Initially when we think about using empathy as a parent, it can arouse some resistance on our part. "Why should I be empathetic? He's being whiny and irresponsible. I work all day, and I get my share of the housework done. Why should I be having to come up with empathy?" My main response is that it is important to keep your goal in sight. If the goal is to get the chores done, equip your child with the skills to be responsible, and to maintain a sense of connection with your child, it is useful to begin with empathy. If Dr. Phil agreed with my suggestion on empathy and he were to respond to our natural resistance to this idea, I could just hear him say in his drawl, "Look someone's got to be the adult around here. Looks like you're the only likely candidate"

In addition to empathy, something else that can be helpful is to use questions that elicit how our kid sees the situation. "So what are some of the challenges in getting your chores done?" This can help kids to become involved in the conversation. Instead of feeling criticized for their lack of responsibility they might be more likely to help identify what they problem is, which by itself will make it more likely that you'll be able to come up with some sort of workable solution.

Now that you've got your kid closer to being on the same wavelength, one way to proceed is to use collaborative problem solving. This sort of approach to finding solutions actually works much better if it is done visually on paper, or ideally on a big white board or butcher paper up on the wall. Step 1) Define the problem. Step 2) Brainstorm a lot of possible solutions to the problem, with everyone involved contributing ideas. It important at this stage not to edit ideas. We come up with much more creative ideas when we aren't simultaneously editing or critiquing thoughts as we're coming up with them. Step 3) Circle the solutions that seem most helpful. Step 4) Identify one or more possible solutions and give them a road test. Finally, Step 5) evaluate how it went and revisit the process as necessary.

So when you're tempted to lecture, wait to have the conversation until you're calmer, use some empathy and give collaborative problem solving a try. This is certainly not the only way to avoid the erosion that lectures can have on responsible behavior and on your relationship with your child, but it can be one effective route.

Beyond Lectures, Part 1

We often find ourselves talking most to our kids when things are going poorly.

Why can't you remember to do your chores on your own. You're 12 years old now. You've got to start taking some responsibility. Do you think that a boss would put up with always having to remind you what you're supposed to be doing? It's about time you start pulling your own weight around here.

The words have a way of flowing right off our tongues in these situations, don't they? Charles Fay of the Love and Logic Institute has quipped that there is a part of the brain that contains lectures that lies dormant until we either become parents or teachers. Suddenly the words come just like magic.

But in the chores example above just how much of that lecture is the kid likely to retain? Practically nothing. Do kids ever respond by saying, "Hey Dad, thanks for the wisdom. I was getting a little lazy, but now I can see that I do need to take on a little more responsibility for my own good. Not to mention that I need to be doing more of my share around here out of respect for the family"?

If that paragraph makes you chuckle it's because it is so unlikely. After delivering that lecture you're more likely to see are a frustrated, resentful or hurt look coming over your kid's face.

You can think of it this way. Any positive effects we hope that our lectures are going to have tend to ricochet off our child's cranium, but any potentially negative effects of having a way of seeping their way right through to the brain. Some of these negative effects include poor self-concept and less connection with the adult giving the lecture.

Another way of remembering this is to bring to mind the words of the wonderful child psychologist Haim Ginott, "When a person is drowning, that is not the time to try to give them swimming lessons."

So realizing that lectures don't work very well, and are even counter productive, what is it that we can do instead? The main thing is to talk at a time when we're feeling pretty calm, and when we're not in the middle of the problem. Right when we come across the problem is almost never the time to either talk about it or to invite our child to talk. Take some time until you have a sense of what you want to say, and until you have some perspective (this may involve some breathing).

Once you're ready, a good way to start off is to give your child some say in when you're going to talk. "Hey Chris, I'm going to need to talk with you a minute. When would be a good time for you?"

Now that we have a bit of a sense of the downside of lectures and how to get a conversation set up, we'd better take a look next time at how we might go about this sort of conversation.

Inaugural Quote

I thought it be appropriate to start this whole blogging thing off with a quote:

"For a long time it has seemed to me that life was about to begin; Real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."

Father Albert D’Souza

I find this meaningful whether about life generally or about parenting. It hit me for the first time when I was in undergrad. I remember as much younger man getting very frustrated with setbacks, financial aid not coming in on time, losing 3/4 of a term paper because it was the 80s and I had yet to learn the lessons about saving frequently (to my 5 1/4 inch floppy). I used to experience a lot of my life with the following thought as my background theme, “Once I get past X hassle, then I can get on with enjoying my life.” But I began to discover exactly what this quote is getting at. If I wait until all the fires are out, until my inbox is empty, until things finally calm down, I will be waiting for a good portion of my life, rather than living it. The nature of life, I think, is that even though we get the wisdom in this quote, it is all to easy to lose sight of, which I guess is synonymous with losing perspective.