3 Useful Tips To Keep Your Child Motivated

With tuition, co-curricular and additional activities inside and out of school, an average primary school child in Singapore’s monthly planner would look competitive next to an average working adult’s. If given the option, it wouldn’t be long before a parent hears, “I want to quit.”

Why do children quit? Usually, they feel that the activity isn’t fun anymore. It may have gotten too difficult for them to accomplish. They may feel like the training is the least important in their busy schedules and that it does not account for anything at all. The two main reasons for quitting is usually frustration and boredom.

What happens, then, to all that wasted time, money and energy put into developing a skill outside of the regular academics? All those piano, ballet or swimming lessons are left incomplete. You could argue that even with their short time within these lessons, they’ve possibly built character or learnt lessons that will follow them for life, but the reality is these activities could create so much more for their lives in the future if they had stuck it through. It’s always nice to have that additional skill that your children can look back on in their later stage of life.

Let’s take a look back into our own lives. How many of us have wanted to be great at a sport and compete in the Olympics? How many of us wanted to perform, perhaps, on an international scale? How many of us had aspirations and career goals we were just too chicken to achieve?

Is it really because of a lack of interest, or is it a lack of motivation?

Sometimes, all we need, or all our children need is a little push. That little push, is in fact, more than just a nudge towards the activity you’ve planned for them. Coaxing takes time, and being too harsh can hurt your children instead.

So how do we keep our children motivated to continue an activity that they use to enjoy with such great passions?

Here are three useful tips to help keep your child motivated.

1. Show them you care.

Children need to know that you care about their lives. The more you seem like you don’t care, the more they will think it doesn’t matter. Listen and pick up on the way they speak about their activities. Sometimes, they may be facing challenges that upset or worry them. These challenges might be the factor that is pushing them to give up. Gently find out about their worries and show your support positively.

It’s not enough to tell them that they need to push their worries aside or to say “you’re doing well. Good job!” It could help if you could talk about your past experiences and how you dealt with difficulties in your life as a child.

Showing you care also means being more involved. You want to keep your children interested and their passions burning.

If swimming is the activity, don’t just stop at swimming in a pool. Check out swimming competitions, swimming as a lifestyle, other water activities, leisure swimming at the beach. Branch out and expand from just swimming lessons.

If it’s ballet, go for musicals, watch dances, create videos and dance routines for fun.

Do something out of the regular classes that can enhance their interests.

2. Navigate their failures.

Failure is a stepping stone towards success, but children can often take loss negatively. Paired with a nagging parent behind it all, quitting would seem like the better option. Instead of criticising their downfalls or telling them only not to give up, constructive words like, “You did your best, let’s find out how we can do better” or “Take a break, we’ll figure out what went wrong later” will help them see that it is not the end.

Simply telling your child “Don’t give up” or “Try better next time” does not put a path in their journey. Be the map for your children and take the time to help them find their next step forward towards success.

Being a map means to help them draw out a plan to do better. Similar to academic tuitions, figure out what’s the problem, and find out how they can get better from there.

For example, your child doesn’t seem to be passing their grading in Taekwondo. Find out what pattern wasn’t done right, of check if the technical skills are in order. Sometimes, their failures could be because they lack understanding. Explaining something in the same way over and over again can not make them understand.

You don’t have to be an expert in the activity for you to help them navigate their failures to success. All you need to do is to research, ask their teachers some questions and draw out a map that guides them.

3. Celebrate their success.

You don’t have to throw a party for every passed exam or match won. A handwritten card is a celebration. Their favourite bar of chocolate is a celebration. A hug is a celebration. Also, celebrate the small successes like the completion of a difficult task. Maybe your child had problems with those pirouettes or can’t seem to get her freestyle strokes just right. Celebrating their little accomplishments will motivate them to push forward in their next obstacle.

Try to be aware of what the curriculum is, so your children also know that you are interested and involved.

Actively work on these three tips and your relationship with your child. The key is to understand that their struggles are real and to provide them with a detour plan that can help them see that the ultimate goal is possible. Of course, if your child shows clear signs that he is not interested in the activity you’ve scheduled for him to participate in, it may be time to quit. Be sure you can identify the lack of interest from the lack of motivation.

Once they find that one activity that they are passionate about, help them stick to it and commit till the end. Listen, navigate and celebrate your children’s journeys.