How to Motivate Your Child
As a parent I know that I have not done everything perfectly, I have my faults and know that there are plenty of things that I can work on. As a mother, I try to do my best but sometimes there are things that I do need help with. I’m not perfect, and my children are not perfect. We try our best but there are definitely some issues that I’d love to work out with my kids. When you have a tween, it’s easy to think that this may be a difficult task considering we’re right smack in the puberty stage coupled with the need for more independence.
How to Motivate Your Child
What can I do to motivate my child to do better, to do better in school or be more kind or be more loving towards their siblings? I don’t want to argue or get angry, I don’t want to nag, I want my child to want to do better.
What does your child need help with?
You’ll need to define what character trait, your child needs help with this could be anything like being organized or working on kindness towards siblings, make a list of things that you’d like to see a change in and prioritize it. Take one thing at a time and focus on the most pressing issue.
Make a plan
Meet with your child and discuss your concerns, do not lecture or talk down to them. Discuss your concerns and let them know how you feel and get their input as well. They can offer up their own solutions and they need to know why this bothers you and why they should be working on the issue with you as well.
Work as a team
Habits take time to get over, you’ll need to work with your child to overcome their weaknesses and your own. It’s not going to happen overnight but patience and work will pay off and everyone will be happier for it.
We’ve had to change the way we handled screen time in our home as well. It’s not something that is given freely, it has to be earned. Particularly when it something that brings temper tantrums when it’s turned off or the constant asking of when they’re going to receive their video game time was just getting to be too much.
We took away my son’s favorite game because he wasn’t keeping up with his chores and we kept having to repeat things over and over again which definitely has to do with obedience. We’re still working through this but we’re taking it a little bit at a time. He doesn’t automatically get to play on his video game days, it based on his school work, his chores, and his attitude. He’s really been trying to keep up with things and we are starting to see a change.
When your child sees that you mean business and that this issue really matters to you, they’ll want to step up their game. Opening the dialogue helps you discuss the issue with your child and to create a plan.
If you need a step by step guide to work through this then you need to use the Motivate Your Child Action Plan. It’s in a workbook style where there are places for you to write in your answers as you go through each step. Anyone can think of a plan, but when you see it on paper it makes you work harder to achieve what you yourself has set out to do.
It’s a thorough guide to help you discuss things with your child and resolve issues that are of a concern to you along with your child. Children cannot be controlled but you can be their to guide.
