Motivation is elusive. It does not come often, and when it does, it’s only for quite some time. However, several phenomenons can trigger long-lasting motivation in us. For some, motivation comes when they are challenged; others find themselves motivated when they know exactly what they want. Most people are motivated when they are working on something they enjoy.
For kids, the only formula for motivation is for them to love and enjoy what they are doing. Let’s take a look at how you can perpetuate that:
Ask Questions
The first and foremost thing to do for your kids to feel motivated is to pay interest in what they are learning. We often discard our kids' abilities by assuming they can’t or wouldn’t want to do something. But we don’t know what our kids want to do and what they can do until we ask them.
As parents, we must ask our kids questions about what they are learning and whether they are enjoying learning about it. Children have a variety of things ahead of them to learn; it only makes sense to ask them what they want to learn about at least every week. When we enquire about kids’ interests now, and then, it not motivates them to do better in that subject since they realize someone cares about what they are learning, it also helps us narrow down their career choices so that we could prepare them better for the future.
Connect Learning with Interests
Learning does not have to be a boredom inducing and tedious task. Kids often lose their enthusiasm when studying hour approaches because of a lack of exciting elements in the syllabus. This situation can be easily curbed by connecting learning procedures with kids’ interests.
For instance, if you want your kids to read more at home, introduce them with books about their favorite characters. Similarly, try teaching them difficult subjects by incorporating elements of their interests in them. This way, children grow enthusiastic about the subjects they are learning.
Play to their curiosities
Kids are naturally curious. They ask questions about everything and anything they come across. Sometimes it gets too much for adults to answer all the “whys” from kidszone, and we end up saying “just because” to avoid further questions.
However, on the flip side of this, we can introduce our kids to something new without any context and observe how they take in the new information. Naturally, they will be curious about the thing, which will power their curiosity and motivate them to learn about it.
Introduce Gamification
Gamification is the process of applying game mechanics to something ordinary to make it more interesting. It is a widely used marketing technique to increase user engagement and interest with certain products and services.
Gamification can be highly effective in motivating kids. With a gamification process, kids can see their progress, allowing them to be engaged and motivated with what they are doing.
Try Different Types of Learning
Over the years, education has evolved to offer a variety of learning other than school syllabus and coaching classes. If your kids don’t show interest in one particular brand of learning, you can just introduce them to any other type of learning available abundantly. For instance, kids who find it challenging to connect with school learning can find a sweet spot in online platforms.
During summer vacations, many online platforms conduct virtual summer camps that offer courses on a range of future-ready subjects such as robotics, programming, and coding classes for kids. You can enroll your kids in one such camp to get them to develop their computational skills and gain an interest in STEM-based learnings.
Give them Feedback
Yay or nay? That is the question. When you kids do something amazing, make sure that you appreciate their efforts and encourage them to do more of that. Similarly, when kids do something opposite of amazing, talk to them and try to convey to them why that particular behavior is unacceptable. Feedback is essential in the proper growth of kids.
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