Nothing is more important for academic success than your own drive.
Parents can use these tips to motivate their children.
On the first day of school, children are still highly motivated.
Curious, they throw themselves into everyday school life.
But as time goes by, hobbies and friends generally become more important than learning.
So it’s important to nurture the child’s inner motivation in good time.
Students who are motivated and eager to understand what they’re learning, attend class better and get better grades.
So parents need to help their child with one thing in particular: motivation!
But how?
1. Be more interested in learning content than in grades!
A child must love learning and be happy with his new knowledge.
Psychologists call this “intrinsic motivation”.
Extrinsically motivated” children, on the other hand, learn only to get good grades or to please the teacher.
In a 2014 study of 200 primary school pupils, Portuguese researchers Marina Lemos and Lurdes Veríssimo discovered that both forms of motivation can operate simultaneously.
The decisive factor is their relationship: if intrinsic motivation, i.e. the pursuit of pleasure and curiosity, predominates, pupils’ subject performance improves.
According to the researchers, extrinsic motivation only played a role from the third year onwards.
If it then took over, the children’s academic performance deteriorated again.
To promote intrinsic motivation, parents should focus more on learning content than on grades.
For example, ask what a test is about first, rather than the result.
2. Support the curiosity of the little ones!
Children who can put their wacky ideas into practice, like keeping an earthworm as a pet or extracting green juice from weeds, are naturally curious and eager to learn.
Because they recognize how exciting it can be to discover and try new things.
No matter how unusual a child’s ideas are or how guaranteed to lead to chaos, support them!
Praise creative ideas even if they don’t immediately seem meaningful and important.
In this way, parents also help their child learn about his or her own interests and limits.
3. Encourage hobbies!
School is often more important to parents than soccer, etc., but it’s only through long-term activities that children realize that it takes stamina and perseverance to achieve small and big successes.
It doesn’t matter whether they’re playing the piano or field hockey: it’s only with sufficient training that they become little professionals.
Dry spells must also be overcome.
Anyone who understands this can better survive boring learning phases.
4. Explain why your child needs to learn.
Children often don’t understand why the knowledge they learn at school should be useful to them in life.
Give them a helping hand, because motivation needs goals: “If you learn to write, you can send a birthday card to Grandma, for example”.
“A good knowledge of English means you can talk to computer gamers all over the world via the Internet.
“And a better grade in math can pave the way to your dream degree.”
“If you have a goal in mind, you’ll also want to deal with more difficult learning content.”
5. Get motivated!
In 2011, a team led by Idit Katz of Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel demonstrated the importance of parents’ fundamental attitude to child motivation.
The researchers interviewed 135 students and their mothers or fathers and found that parents who helped with homework for pleasure and on their own initiative gave their children a more positive sense of learning and behaved more empathetically than those who supported their offspring out of a sense of duty.
Their empathetic behavior, in turn, boosted the children’s intrinsic motivation.
6. Don’t be in a hurry to help!
Although parental motivation is important for children, don’t overdo it with the help!
That’s what a study conducted by a team led by Alois Niggli from the University of Pedagogy in Fribourg, Switzerland, has shown.
The researchers questioned over 1,400 eighth-graders about their parents’ commitment to homework, and tested their French language skills at the beginning and end of the school year.
Lower academic achievement was associated with greater parental interference.
In fact, as adults became more involved, their children’s performance deteriorated even further.
Parents therefore need to let a child try each task for himself before offering support, and then always focus on the steps the child has completed on his own.
That’s the only way to learn: every effort leads to a success I can be proud of.
If you intervene too much in the learning process, you run the risk of children becoming dependent and having little confidence in their own abilities.
7. Be patient!
Even the most motivated child can have a bad day.
It’s important to point this out: mistakes and regressions are allowed.
Learning is sometimes faster, sometimes slower.
And you can also take detours to reach your destination.
Parents need to be patient.
Excessive pressure to perform is the greatest enemy of motivation, leads to excessive demands and makes you passive.
Instead, focus on what the child has already achieved.
As the goal approaches, offer a reward, such as a trip together.
Then, the last step is done in no time.