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  Education
Lesson Plans, Part 3: Motivation Continued By Ben Dawson web posted March 24, 2010 EDUCATION – What can a parent do to motivate a child? Just as we discussed how to help the child mentally in our previous article, you must also sacrificially give of yourself to the emotional well being of your child. You have to give up the negative and be a positive example. The child has to hear you talk favorably about things in your own life. If you complain about work, friends, church, your spouse, and life in general, the child learns all about a negative world, and he will not respect this negative environment. It is broken. Motivate by respect. The parent’s lifestyle needs to be of such a moral standing that the child knows his parents believe what they are teaching him. This means you cannot live a double standard in front of your child. As he sees you dealing honestly with the world around you, he will not attempt to deal underhandedly with teachers, peers, schoolwork, or you. A child will learn right from wrong, love and acceptance, or distrust and hostility just by watching you. He will learn by your integrity that there are consequences, both positive and negative, for every choice he makes, and that nothing in life is free but must be earned with honest effort. Your actions and reactions will be ingrained in his very moral fiber. Children are well on their way to figuring these truths out long before they start kindergarten. Parents, you are the first teacher. Another important part of emotionally motivating a young person is to have high expectations for the child. Begin at an early age to discuss college, scholarships, and future jobs. The child will begin to accept this goal and strive toward it early in life. Many years ago, there was a study conducted in Germany where a group of average achieving students were placed in a young teacher’s classroom. The teacher was told that her students were advanced - the “cream of the crop.” By the end of the year, all the students in this study group actually did amazing things; they outscored every other study group. This was done year after year... different teachers, different students but the results were always the same- amazing gains. The manipulated variable in each study was simply the expectations of the teacher on the children. Children will work hard if you make them feel they are truly capable of achieving great things. Surprisingly, the study in Germany went on to do the opposite; bright overachievers were placed in the class of a teacher who was told the children were just average and below average. Yes, you guessed it; the children did not make normal gains! The teacher’s expectations were missing. I have seen this phenomenon work over and over in my own classes. For example, If I can ever get one creative paragraph out of a poor writer (sometimes with me suggesting many of the ideas), I can brag on them, read their paragraph aloud to the class, and display their paper -with stickers of course. The next time this child writes, he puts forth a great amount of extra effort to assure he turns out quality again. By the end of the year, he truly can compose beautiful narratives on his own. This past fall, as my class took MAP (a computerized test for the Measure of Academic Progress) all students set goals as to where they hoped to score in comparison to a norm. On test day, each child raised their hand to show me their final score as they finished. Right then and there we celebrated every goal that was met. Hugs, high-fives, thumbs up were silently given all around the room. Only two children did not meet their goals; with each I encouraged and promised to give extra help in weak areas before they tested again in the middle of the year. In the winter, I met individually with every child to set goals again. As I told them how amazed I was at the vast amount they had learned since their fall test, the students chose to set goals much higher than before. This time, every student reached and surpassed their goal! We were ecstatic, and the celebration that ensued made each child feel wonderfully accomplished and eager to test again. Praise and high expectations are like miracle drugs. Demonstrate a positive attitude in your home and show your child that you do believe in him by having high expectations. Help him to set goals in the small tasks (like a test) and on the big scale (graduating from college.) Talk about future dreams from a very early age as if they are already a reality. Be your child’s biggest cheerleader and celebrate achievements often. You will be surprised as intrinsic motivation develops your child into a confident and eager learner. © Copyright 2010
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