I had a conference with my child’s teacher yesterday and she thinks he is much more capapble of doing better in his work but is not motivated. I also see this at home and also had some therapists comment about his lack of motivation. I have tried different things to get him motivated and it is very hard!! He sometimes seems to just not care to try. We have finally gotten him to at least try to attempt his work, whereas before he would write whatever he pulled out of the sky. This included math as well as any writing. When we have restricted him, his response was “oh well, I’m off this for awhile.” He may get excited about something for just a little while and then it’s back to “ho hum.” When he does well on a test after several low grades and everyone is excited, he is not.
Have any of you had to deal with this type of behavior and what did you do?
Re: child's motivation
I have always made it very clear with my son that certain things are his job. I have a job, dad has a job, school work and the extra stuff we do is his job. I explain to him that he doesn’t want to be seen as someone who doesn’t do a good job. He will not be successful in life if he doesn’t do his job properly.
I think I have ingrained this pretty well into his head over the years. His successes are his successes, his failures are his failures. If he does well it is, “You must be proud of yourself,” rather than making it about me. I make sure that he gets a chance to experience the consequences of his own actions. If mom his always holding onto the safety net he won’t care if he fails. Mom will just clean things up. I don’t do this in a punitive way. It is just one of life’s lessons that everyone must learn. If you do certain things, you, not I, will have to deal with the consequences.
My son has add is not on meds, but does pretty well in a regular class after a year of sped thanks to other interventions. He has tremendous motivation to succeed and has no problem working very hard.
Re: child's motivation
I was told by one highly gifted/LD plus bad teaching victim that the books he had to read were so boring that while he was reading aloud he tried to think of something else. Of course this made his reading even worse and slowed his learning down even more, but anyone can understand the difficulty of someone who understands black holes trying to keep his attention on Hoppy the Bunny.
Motivation is a tricky thing. I don’t think anyone outside can force motivation on another person; you can only make him do things because it is less trouble to cooperate than not. Many teachers con the children into appearing enthusiastic, but get the same kid some time after class and he will say rude things about the work and the teacher; I’ve never felt this was a good way to teach.
The negative sort of attitude you are seeing is typical of a student experiencing massive frustration. He expects to fail and to get into trouble. If he occasionally succeeds, he is pretty sure it’s a fluke and he will fail again next time. Also any success or any enthusiasm on his part will lead directly to having more demands put on him, for even more failure. He has given up on himself as a learner.
It’s difficult to turn this situation around. You need a change of focus, a change of the materials used, a change of the kinds of demands put on him. He needs things that he can succeed in and learn consistently, but not just dropping back to baby stuff, rather a planned progression so he can see himself moving ahead. It takes time and work, but the sooner you startm the sooner he can see himself as a success.
Re: child's motivation
I was where you were two years ago, and I found it most helpful to focus and reward effort, rather than to focus on grades. Still, this remains my biggest problem with my sixth grader right now. At this point, she can do the work without any more difficulty than the average kid in her class. (There are a few highly gifted children in the class who can breeze through the advanced curriculum with ease, and she figures she should be like them, but life isn’t like that.) She has always been a social child, and she just isn’t interested in cracking the books. She is a whiz at all the excuses. What I have done in response to this behavior, is I have set up the following policies:
(1) If you didn’t bring the book home, study from it, and ASK ME TO QUIZ YOU, thus proving you studied for the test, any grades lower than a B will result in your losing all privileges over the next weekend, including any fun activities planned. On the other hand, if you studied but did poorly, there will be no consequences. (2) Any incomplete assignments on my biweekly checks with your teachers will result in automatic loss of the next fun event, whether this is a movie, ski trip or other event. (I try to arrange for at least one significant recreational event every two weeks during winter, as otherwise this is kinda meaningless). Thus she has a ski trip scheduled for this Friday, and she knows I will check with her teachers tomorrow. Any incompletes MUST be made good by close of school today, or her trip is toast. (I heard her calling up all her teachers Monday and asking them if she had any incompletes, so I think the bodies will have been buried in time. ;) Likewise if there are any quizzes I haven’t heard about, and she has scored low on them, her weekend is gone, and with it going to see “South Pacific” at the Embassy Theatre, and the circus at the Coliseum.
This has been working a bit better, but it is frustrating. The first marking period she was quite diligent, and I was able to slack off and not check on her so much, but right before Christmas she really went into what amounted to a power nosedive in terms of studying, completing her work, and keeping me informed. Even her Spanish and Art teacher complained! I figure that this is because she knew that even I wouldn’t cancel Christmas and a trip to Disneyworld just because she was a preadolescent pain in the rear. Instead, I’m sending her to Massamutten Military Academy in Virginia this summer to study Algebra I six hours a day, six days a week for five weeks. After all, as I told her, if she doesn’t straighten out by high school she will be going to military school, so it is only fair to let her have a taste of the life.
Shirin (aka the Grinch who stole summer vacation)
Have you looked into ADD-Inatttentive? He seems to fit the profile…I have several kids who are ADD-Inattentive…Creative and artistic as long as it is “THEIR” thing…They are easily bored, and if it isn’t their idead…they could care less…When it is a novel activity…and they are intrigued they can meet the mark…But otherwise they are great a tuning out the rest of the world and tuning into what they want to and come out when they are ready…I would ask your pediatirician for a rating scale for ADD and testing on his Attention with the TOVA for auditory and visual attention.. regarding the rating scales everyone involved with him should fill one out and have him fill one out too…. You should see a pattern and with the right diagnosis he can get the help he needs…whether it is medication or behavior modification.
Once I figured out what was happenning with my kiddo’s lack of motivation and got them the help they needed we made strides. In just 2 years my daughter has gone from scraping the bottom of the barrel in learning to achieving within the mean…It has been remarkable what the right diagnosis, medication and therapy can do for a child..
Have you ever asked him where he goes in his mind when he tunes you out?? I have done that with many kids I have worked with and I am always surprised…because they tell me they can’t help it…their mind just goes off and does it’s own thing and they find it frustrating because they can’t attend to what they should be doing….and they don’t know how to focus or control it…it just happens….