Comments on: How to Motivate Your Child

by: alogo joel

Tue, 20 May 2008 17:20:01 +0000

I AM A KENYAN WHO IS INTERESTED IN MOTIVATING AND MENTORING KIDS SO I WANT TO LINKED TO PEOPLE WHO CAN TRAIN,ADVICE OR MENTOR ME IN THIS LINES.I HAVE SPARED MY SUNDAY AFTERNOONS TO SPEND IN CHILDREN HOMES.
PLEASE ASSIST.

THANKS
JOEL

by: rid head lice

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 18:48:01 +0000

rid head lice

Also, head louse removal in a school, nursing home or similar shared facility would need immediate as well as coordinated action, and also administrative support to eliminate hair lice as well as prevent its spreading to uninfected persons. It is neces…

by: Potty Train My Daughter

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 19:04:02 +0000

Five Easy Steps To Potty Train Your Baby

No…Don’t let your child pee or poop every where and make your life miserable. Try to potty training your child since baby. Starting since newborn is not a bad idea. Some mom say the sooner you potty train your baby the better you find the result. Th…

by: Sylvia

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 20:46:26 +0000

I am wondering if you ever got a reply, Anne? My son is exactly the same way. He gets A’s on his tests, but is sloppy with or forgets to turn in his homework, and doesn’t put a full effort in on projects, so he ends up with a weird report card — A’s on all the tests, C’s, D’s and F’s on some homeworks and projects, and ends up with a B- even though he clearly knows the material. He thinks it is a waste of time to need to show his knowledge via homework, and can’t be convinced to just “play by the rules of the game” and just do it. It is disheartening to see a smart boy get much lower grades than he could, and I don’t want it to end up affecting his college choices down the road. He’s only 12 now, but what happens if he continues this into high school? Nothing seems to motivate him, and most certainly not charts with stickers. Help?

by: Jay

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 03:07:02 +0000

I am wondering if my son has conduct disorder. He just turned five and is in kindergarten. He has a tendency when younger kids like him (rather love him) he acts weird and sometimes heartless he does not hurt them but gets bugged and pushes the other kid.Or acts or says things in a way that the child or the parent of the other kid feels hurt.When I point out and say what he did is wrong he throws a tantrum and says things like “you don’t love me”, I am bad kid etc.. He seems to overreact and always seems to get angry for silly reason. We talk a lot to him especially me I try to rationalise with him. Then he will understand for a few days but again he does the same thing.I tell him how much I love him all the time. So now what I do is when he acts out I pretend to get angry and sad and say mockingly “you don’t love me” whatever he says to me. Then we just crack up. But the question still remains if he has that conduct disorder since he is our only child yet.

by: Sarah Burgos

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 03:20:03 +0000

Charlene, I just read your post and don’t know if you received a reply yet. I work with children, and specifically worked with children who had special needs, or behavioral problems (some very mild to severe). The most important thing to do I think is to praise your child as much as you can. Children who are constantly hearing that they are being “bad” tend to live up to that expectation, and get angrier/worse. The more kids are praised (ie. sit with him during homework and make a big deal after even one question is finished, or if he is mostly well-behaved at school one day, take him out for ice-cream) and encouraged, the better they do. Another thing to consider is possibly getting an evaluation for your child to rule out A.D.D./A.D.H.D. (Attention Deficit Disorder w/ or w/o hyperactivity). The difficulty staying focused and “troublemaker” symptoms are classic for this disorder. For children with that problem, it is very difficult for them to concentrate and be “good”, nomatter how hard they try. The more their parent understands about this disorder, the more mercy they will receive, and the better they will do in school, life, etc. Lastly, a chart is a sure-fire way to motivate your child and build self-esteem. You can give him stickers for each chore or responsibility he completes (start with easy ones- anything you can find as a reason to praise and reward him), and may compile these stickers or checks to a larger reward at the end of the week (may be end of day if he cannot wait). Instead of punishment, use rewards as motivation for proper behavior in school, etc. Praise, not punishment, is what these kids in particular really need.

by: Charlene

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 09:20:07 +0000

Hi Linda,

I read this article and what you had to say sounded great. Can you give me some tips on how to motivate a 6 year old boy. I am a single mother and I work full-time. My son does have a hard time at school staying focused is difficult and he’s one of the boys that seem to be a “troublemaker” in his class. How can i help him to want to do well in class and not get into “problems” in school.

by: Anne

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 23:37:22 +0000

How do you motivate a 16 year old boy to do well in school? He does well on his tests (90’s) but poorly on his assignments. He just said he doesn’t want to make goals or be stressed.

by: Trena

Sat, 18 Nov 2006 17:28:22 +0000

We have tried all different types of reward charts and my son just gets bored with them and doesnt care whether he is rewarded or not. Any suggestions on keeping his interest?

Also…I am probably just as unfocused as he is…so it is a big challenge for me to keep up with it too…any other ideas besides using a chart? THANKS!

by: Nikki

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 05:12:37 +0000

Linda,

If he is constantly picking his nose, maybe something is bothering him. We live in a dry climate and that is an issue. Try saline nose drops and have him blow his nose several times a day. You’re right eating stuff off the ground is disgusting. I have an almost 4 year old and he understands about tummy aches, germs, etc. Try rationalization.

by: Linda

Thu, 07 Sep 2006 03:16:22 +0000

Has anyone used a chart to curtail a certain behavior? My son is constantly picking his nose and eating what he finds (yuck, I know!). I was thinking of doing a chart for each day that he DOES NOT pick his nose, but I think that a whole day is a lot to ask at first??? Any suggestions???

by: Jennifer

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 03:00:41 +0000

I am new to this website and I have a great six year old daughter that most of the time is wonderful but she does have those phases where she turns into another child but I am gaining patience during these moments which are few. I love the advice everyone gives and am going to incorporate those things into our routine

by: M. Kinnear

Tue, 29 Aug 2006 15:05:26 +0000

What a great idea. Both my boys are difficult to motivate when it comes to school because they are so different and have varying strengths. I needed some advice like this…THANKS!

by: Daniel

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 02:00:02 +0000

I like much of what you describe here. In fact, I’m a member of a terrific website that even makes a lot of this easy to do (doing it manually takes a lot of time, which we don’t have!). I like it a lot better than tracking spending on sheets of paper, or spreadsheets, and it’s more fun for kids.

It’s at www.activeallowance.com, in case you’re interested.

by: Leslie Routhier

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 00:50:17 +0000

This is such a huge subject - thanks for initiating the discussion, Ellen. Here are a few thoughts:

1) to reinforce Michelle’s comment (Kids need to be trained….), Dale Carnegie says “Act enthusiastic and you’ll be enthiusiastic”. In other words, attitude sometimes follows behavior - and it’s much easier to teach behavior than it is to teach attitude. If we can teach our kids to behave in a desirable way, their attitudes often follow.

2) As for checklists, I love them (we help parents create them on our website). To build on this idea, I find they work even better if the lists evolve over time. For example, if you have multiple children and a dishwasher, it’s often good to rotate responsibility for emptying the dishwasher, perhaps once a month. Same idea for walking the dog, etc. And as each kid gets older, some things can be dropped from the list (as they become an ingrained habit, like brushing teeth) while other things should be aded.

3) Like many systems, kids are enthusiastic for a little while - I found that initially, my kids loved to check things off their list (especially the younger ones (6-8) - but they quickly tired of it. Thats’ another reason why it’s great to link their responsibilities to carrots, as Ellen suggests. This helps to create a sustainable system that works across several years (our experience with our 4 kids is that age 6-15 is the right range)

Some parents use privileges (eg an extra hour on the computer or a later bedtime), others use allowances (not all or nothing, though) and some use both (we use both).

by: Penina

Thu, 13 Jul 2006 17:51:01 +0000

We just toilet trained our 3 1/2 year old son with the aid of a chart: I discovered that he doesn’t even need a prize at the end of the chart - the act of knocking boxes off his chart (we color ours in) was enough of a carrot for him!

by: Natalie Valles

Thu, 06 Jul 2006 15:15:48 +0000

Krissi
The chart starts them off with the nature of fullfilling thier own needs/wants. You eventually wean onto saying things like, “wow, that was so nice of you to think of her, help her,” whatever, and give no mark on the chart.If they say, do I get a mark, you just say, well “sometimes you get a mark, but not everytime. If I gave you a mark on everything you do that’s great, there’d be no room!” Eventually, selective marks are best because just like in real life, sometimes you get noticed for the good you do and sometimes you don’t.

by: Natalie Valles

Thu, 06 Jul 2006 15:12:13 +0000

We have charts that are posted on my children’s doors and we fill them in with stickers. In fact, sometimes picking out the new stickers is the reward itself. We have modified the charts over the years–potty was the most crucial I guess. At that time, we had packages of underwear hanging on the door as well. (My daughter really liked to even just hold and look at the panties each night after we reviewed ho many stickers she earned! She had to fill the whole week with multiple daily stickers to get them–and when she had an accident, we were able to say, sorry baby, next time you get to try again for the sticker!) Well, our charts have grown. my son came up with the idea that we should have a daily to do list as well so we knew what were going to do. And eventually he learned that it was ok to modify the list if we “needed to do something!” (But now he makes his bed and picks up his own clothes. And it is cute to see daddy’s handwriting on the list with the kindergardener’s writing of the word “computer time”.) Charts are a greeat motivator!

by: Michelle

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 11:31:39 +0000

Children need to be trained to do good things. The external (the “carrot”) reward is sometimes a good way to train them. When the good behavior is in place then the reward will be changed to be a more internal (”I want to do good things because it makes me, or those I care about, happy”) one.

by: Krissi

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 19:09:50 +0000

Do you think that dangling a reward in front of them takes away from the real purpose of helping each other and being nice to others, just because that’s the right thing to do - not because there is a reward involved? Just curious.

by: Ellen C. Braun

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 15:33:05 +0000

Great question, Michelle. I don’t think they need the exact same reward. I would make a chart with a picture of the 11-year-old’s goal and another chart with a picture of the 4-year-old’s goal side-by-side.

Or, food will always work… everyone loves a trip to the ice-cream parlor at any age:) At one point, we went to 7-11 for slurpees when my children finished a no-coming-out-of-bed-after-bedtime chart!

by: Michelle

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 15:00:40 +0000

Regarging the Motivation category suggestions: My daughters are seven years apart, ages 4 and 11, and don’t have many things in common to have as a goal. I can think of a couple, but then I’d be done in six weeks. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks!