What motivates children?
Have you ever thought, “What motivates a child to learn?”.
Well, children are self-motivated, and the basic reason is their curiosity to know, explore and learn new things. But there are certain points in life which can lead to demotivation or lessen such spirit.
As a parent, the most important job is to keep up your child’s curiosity levels. No matter how many and how irrelevant questions your child asks, try to answer each and every question and explain the reasons and logics behind that.
This learning beyond the class; the extended learning process is immensely important for a child to have a dynamic personality and keep learning throughout life. The learning in the class is not sufficient enough for the child to stand out in the crowd. Of course, school is of utmost importance in a child’s life, but the questions and thoughts which put your child’s mind to work and explore new areas are equally important.
When you answer your child’s curious questions, they get motivated, which eventually help them perform better in everything they do.
Below are certain ways which can help your child stay motivated:
- Listen to your child:
When your child asks you something, never snub your child. If you are busy, you might ask your child to discuss later, but brushing off his questions or telling him to stop asking irrelevant and illogical questions, will make him feel disheartened and his zeal to know things will reduce.
- Interact with your child:
When your child comes home from school/ play, do ask questions about what happened there, what did he learn, what went well, what problems he faced etc. Appreciate him on the achievements and discuss and give solutions to the problems and the weak areas. Let him talk his heart out, so that only positivity is left with the child, which will motivate him to excel in life. You can also reward your child to keep him motivated to learn and challenge himself more.
- Make your child independent, let them deal with problems and learn:
Let your child take decisions, complete his work on his own, do the regular tasks basis their age and maturity. Of course, you are there to guide him, help him when he needs help. Let your child learn at his own pace, from his own experiences and mistakes. Don’t try to control your child. This way he will learn better and might find out new ways of doing things.
- Give your child a bouquet of activities to choose from:
If your child wants to learn new things, do provide the options to choose from. And if after doing an activity for a short period, your child loses interest in it, don’t force him to stick to it. Let your child explore by getting into the field/ activity and then do what he actually likes/ gets interested in. You must ensure your child has enough of things to learn from, like variety of learning toys, games, books. Provide different learning platforms like visual, verbal, audio, social, logical, physical etc. to your child to keep his motivation high.
- Encourage your child’s interests:
Until your child is interested in doing/ knowing something, there is no point explaining things to your child. Suppose you keep on telling things about computers to your child, every now and then, but you know that your child is more interested in knowing about nature and science. So, it will become difficult for you to keep the child motivated and interested in new learnings. Therefore, encourage more about what your child wants to learn and don’t force him to learn things probably you feel are important to learn.
- Introduce your child to the world of reading:
Reading is immensely important for everyone, let alone children. Till the time a child is exposed to this great world of reading, he can’t fathom what he’s missing. Reading helps a child to learn new words, imagine more, comprehend situations in a better way, get inspired and motivated. Help your child in making reading a habit. (Related Articles: How to inculcate reading habits in children, Why is reading important). Provide your child different reading materials like books, magazines, newspapers, etc.
- Inculcate values that talk about positivity and happiness:
Teach your child to have an attitude which never lets him down, no matter what. How competition helps in learning new things, rather than just focussing on winning, how to be positive even when you lose, and when challenges knock your door, take it as an opportunity to find solutions and learn. Having the attitude of positivity and staying happy in each situation in life will help them stay motivated always.
