Instilling Self-Motivation
Slacker. Students toss the term around among themselves like a hackey-sack and everyone laughs it off.
But what happens when parents are convinced their child isn't working to full potential in school? How can they motivate without alienating?
As with adults, motivation for teens is generally external or internal. With teens, external motivation may be cash or video games for good grades, and withheld privileges and restricted social life for bad.
"These have variable effectiveness, but they often don't instill internal motivation," says James Myers, PhD, a pediatric psychologist in the Division of Behavioral Medicine and Clinical Psychology at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.
"Teenagers are asserting their independence – it's their job to rebel. So when parents set up such rules, it can fuel animosity and power struggles."
Back Off to Gain Ground
Better, then, is appealing to a teen's internal self-motivation. This can be difficult as parents learn to back away from over-involvement in their child's school work, allow their child to realize the consequences of their actions and, yes, occasionally, even let the child fail. "It's a hard thing to do," Dr. Myers concedes.
"In my work, I see some parents are actively involved in every aspect of the child's life, perhaps to a fault. They know better than the child what the homework assignments are."
"The teen may not be getting good grades, instead putting all his energy into the things he really enjoys. He's letting the parent worry about his performance and grades. As children move from middle to high school, parents need to let the child take the reins. In high school, the teen should keep track of assignments and plan to get them done. Parents should take a supervisory role, stepping in as needed, then backing off," Dr. Myers advises.
Make the Cause-Effect Connection
Feeling invulnerable as they do, teens often have difficulty connecting their actions to consequences. "The challenge for parents is to prompt their teen with, 'What are your goals? What are you working toward?'
"Often, teens haven't given that a lot of thought. They might say, 'I want to be a video game programmer or engineer.' Then a parent can say, 'What steps do you need to take to get there?'
"'College.'
"'Right. How will you get into college? What courses will you need?'
"It's important for a teen to see that everyone is talking concretely about her future, that it's about the child, not the parents. It's good to echo what the teen says. This is powerful to teens, because they feel like their parents are listening.
"Even if a goal is unrealistic – a child wants to be a movie star – listen and let the teen figure that out alone. They do in time."
Failure as a Motivator
Much more difficult for many parents is letting a teenager fail and realize the consequences of poor performance. "If a child cannot make the link between poor work and failure, what will he do when the parents aren't there to prevent him from failing? Parents can't go with him to the job when he's 25," Dr. Myers says.
"Teens need to learn to cope with failure and to try again. It's a necessary step at times, and failure can be a big motivator."
Still, Dr. Myers emphasizes that "teens do want their parents to be involved. When they feel listened to, they will engage better. It's a matter of meeting them where they are, listening and bringing them closer to an adult perspective. Parents need to remember that to their teens at 15, 16 or 17, the parents don't know anything. But by a child's 25th birthday, a lot of things their parents said will make
good sense."
