Rewarding kids can kill their internal motivation
One of the most frequent concerns I hear from parents is that their kids aren't motivated. She doesn't do her schoolwork. He won’t study for his test. She won't help with household chores. They won’t practice their musical instrument. We want them to want to do all these things, and we start by feeling perplexed about why they won’t. Our confusion then leads to frustration and sometimes anger.
So what do we do? We question. Try to reason. Attempt to understand. Then we may move toward nagging, reminding, cajoling. We may offer incentives or rewards. Then consequences and punishments. Yet often, in the long term, none of these seem to work.
An important thing we need to realize is that no matter how hard we try, we can’t make our kids do something they don’t want to do. And our attempts at forcing them often make matters worse.
Motivation is the willingness to start, put in effort, and persist. There are certain conditions that foster it which I’ll write about in my next column, and read on for conditions that don’t.
There are two kinds of motivation. Internal or intrinsic motivation is motivation that comes from an inner drive where we commit to something and see it through. This type of motivation comes from the self. External or extrinsic motivation is motivation that comes from the outside. In this type of motivation we are motivated to do something because of what we will get – a reward or praise for example. It is outwardly focused.
For the most part we want our kids to be intrinsically motivated. And while there is a place for short term external motivation that is often driven by rewards to incentivize one to reach a goal or do a less than desirable task, frequent rewards are actually killers of internal motivation.
And this is what can make it hard. When we have tried everything we can to get our kids to do a job, study for a test or practice something they are passionate about and our kids still won’t do it, we can find ourselves exacerbated. Other than engaging in power struggles which can create upheaval in the relationship, often we have no idea what to do. So we may turn to the easiest and simplest option – the one that may create tangible outcomes in the short term – offering rewards, bribes, consequences, threats or punishments – but don’t do much for long term self-motivation.
Research shows that rewards don’t foster motivation which comes from an inner drive and in fact can inhibit it. So the star charts, point systems or consequences don’t work in the long term and actually undermine internal motivation, plus over time parents have to keep upping the rewards in order to get their kids to do the task they are rewarding them for. You can see how motivating kids through externals creates kids who comply for reasons that have nothing to do with an internal drive. As William Stixrud and Ned Johnson say in their book The Self Driven Child, rewards for grades, household chores or other achievements can “lower performance and crush creativity”.
A reward based system is a top down approach controlled by someone other than oneself thus taking away any ownership of the task at hand. It creates kids who only do what is necessary to get the reward and no more, and can lead to interest only in the reward itself rather than a drive to learn more or try harder.
Nagging our kids to get their work done doesn't help either, and only teaches them to tune us out. Power struggles can kill motivation. If the task at hand is about us (parents) and what we want, there is a good chance the child or teen is not going to want to do it – their drive for autonomy is that strong. Further, if we move toward threats, consequences or punishment kids are only motivated by what they should be doing, or not doing, in order to avoid the negative. It is a fear based approach that teaches that overpowering someone is the way to get them to do what you want them to do. Additionally, kids may stand up hard against the feeling of being coerced into something by outside controls.
What we want is kids who do things because it feels good, contributes to a greater good (family or community), brings a sense of satisfaction, helps them see their value, leads them to a desired goal or fosters a passion. I realize that this description may be painting a fairy tale picture of what to expect of a typical child or teen in a variety of homes. So I want to be realistic. We have to remember a few things. Research shows that feelings of boredom can set in for kids starting in seventh grade and increase through high school graduation. Today’s world offers more that is in the “fast, fun and easy” category – think video games, social media and soundbites that come to us in snippets – making anything that requires a slight bit of effort seem perhaps less appealing. And it is important to note that motivation is personal – we can’t expect our kids to be motivated by the same things that motivate us.
Stay tuned for my next column coming out in mid November where I’ll talk about all the things we can do to foster motivation. In the meantime, take a step back and observe. Where is your child or teen internally motivated and where are they only motivated by externals? What is the difference between these various tasks? Are you using punishments, consequences or rewards? What if you experimented by not using any of these strategies for a week to 10 days (without losing your cool) – what would happen? Consider asking your child what is preventing them from doing the task at hand. Begin encouraging your teen by noticing and appreciating all that they are doing without offering too much non-specific praise. Empathize with them in a way that shows you understand the task may not be their favorite thing to do. A little curiosity, positive encouragement and less force may go a long way.
Originally published in Jackson Hole News and Guide
