5 Ways To Motivate Your Child To Study Well

Do you have trouble motivating your children to study?

It’s a common problem that I see in my coaching work with pre-teens and teens.In my experience, many parents approach this problem the wrong way.In this article, I’m going to explain 5 principles for motivating children to do well in school and study hard.

In this era of cut throat competition, parents constantly hammer their young ones to excel in the academics. Young kids do not want to study, also they are unaware of the importance of study. As parents, we may rant that it’s important to be successful in life and attain a job. But at this young age, they do not understand this and are rather more fascinated by playing games. When your kid voraciously plays video games to cross a certain level he is self motivated. i.e., he is internally driven to succeed the level. This internal force towards studying is missing and this is where the parents enter into the picture.

* Ask about what he is learning not about scores

Instead of lashing out at your child for B’s and C’s, ask him what he learnt at school and have him teach you. Correct him if he is wrong somewhere, and his teaching you in his own words, will be a repeat of lesson for him which will help him retain better.

* Stay on your kids’ team

Have a relation with your child that is positive and respectful. The need is to make your child feel responsible towards his studies, and any reaction to your feelings of frustrations and fears will only make your child relent and defy you. Play from your kids’ side, not against him.

* Don’t annoy your children

One of the keys to motivating your children to work hard is not to annoy them.This may seem odd at first, as we’re used to parents getting annoyed with children, not vice versa.But relationships are a two-way street, and parents can also annoy children.If your children are continually upset with you over things you say or do, they will find it hard to listen to you.You may have some great wisdom to offer them, but your children won’t be receptive to your advice.Parents often engage in power struggles with their children. For some of us, these are habits we learned from our own childhoods.

* Give your children a sense of control

If you want to motivate your children, they need to feel as if they’re in control of their lives.Being motivated comes from knowing that you can shape your future through the actions you take today.But if children feel as if their parents are in complete (or almost complete) control, they will have little motivation.Some parents hover over their children. They micromanage every last detail of their children’s lives.

* Equip your children with planning and organisational skills

As parents, we (hopefully) have planning and organisational skills that we’ve developed over the years.But we often take these skills for granted, and forget that our children don’t yet have those skills.Pre-teens and teens can feel overwhelmed, frustrated, and stressed because of the demands they face at school. In response, many of them give up and turn to videos and games as a form of escape.But if they have planning and organisational skills, their attitude toward school and academics will be different.One organisational skill you can teach your children is to break down big tasks into smaller tasks.Some people call this “chunking down”. This technique makes any task more manageable and doable.Another skill you can teach your children is list-making. Lists are at the heart of all organisational skills, so this is a great place to start.