“Give Your Child a Head Start: Four Early Parenting Steps for a Smooth and Successful Life”

Lack of motivation can manifest in children as a superficial approach to their work, resulting in a lack of investment of time and effort. This can create a vicious cycle of failure and low self-confidence. Parents play a crucial role in breaking this cycle and fostering a positive learning attitude in their children.

Break Down Tasks

Younger children often struggle to accurately assess the challenges they face in their studies. They may feel overwhelmed by the amount of homework or its difficulty. For instance, a child might come home from school and exclaim, “I have so much homework today!” This sense of being overwhelmed can lead to procrastination and increased stress.

In such situations, parents should help children change their perception of academic tasks. One effective method is to break down tasks into smaller, more manageable parts.

Instead of expecting children to complete all their homework in one sitting, suggest they tackle ten math problems, copy a paragraph of Vietnamese text, or read a page of a book. This makes the task seem lighter and more approachable.

Parents can set a timer and ask their children to focus on completing one part of the task within the allotted time. Afterward, they can review their progress together. As children experience success in completing these smaller tasks, their confidence will gradually build.

The sense of accomplishment from completing these small tasks will stimulate their motivation to learn, helping them realize that studying doesn’t have to be a burden but can be an enjoyable and rewarding process.

Allow for Downtime

Children’s free time is often consumed by academic pursuits. Well-intentioned parents may create a busy schedule filled with tasks and specific timelines. However, this can deprive children of the opportunity to explore their interests and passions.

Children raised in such an environment may struggle to develop internal motivation and self-management skills. They can become dependent on adult guidance and lack the ability to make their own decisions in various situations.

Psychological research has found that a child who cannot decide what to do or how to do it will likely lack the motivation to engage in other activities. When children’s lives are solely focused on academic activities without a balance of recreational pursuits, they may develop a poor sense of self-efficacy and be more prone to giving up when faced with challenges.

To address this issue, parents should allow their children to make more decisions in their daily lives. Provide them with downtime to explore their personal interests and hobbies.

Encourage your children to engage in non-academic activities such as crafts, music, sports, or learning a musical instrument. These activities foster skill development and create a sense of enjoyment and enthusiasm.

Offer Appropriate Rewards

Some parents are reluctant to reward their children, fearing that it may lead to arrogance or self-centeredness. They often believe that an excessive focus on rewards can cause children to act solely out of self-interest without developing intrinsic values such as perseverance, responsibility, or a love of learning.

However, psychological research has shown that appropriate rewards can significantly boost children’s motivation.

It’s not just about offering rewards but also about how they are utilized. Rewards should provide a sense of accomplishment and enjoyment, stimulating children’s intrinsic motivation.

For example, rewards can be in the form of a fun outing, a small toy, or even simple words of praise from parents. During this process, help your child recognize their progress by recording their achievements, no matter how small. When children see their advancements, they will feel proud and be motivated to continue striving for improvement.

Let Your Child Experience Success

Many children rarely hear words of praise and often feel like they are not good enough. The “self-fulfilling prophecy” in psychology suggests that children will continue to act according to their self-perceptions until those perceptions become a reality. If a child rarely experiences success, they may predict that they “can’t do it,” leading to a decrease in their intrinsic motivation.

Therefore, if you want to foster internal motivation, create opportunities for your child to experience success regularly.

Whenever you see your child doing something right, offer words of encouragement and praise. For example, say, “You’re doing your homework on time; that’s a great habit!” or “You got nine math problems right; that’s fantastic! Your accuracy is improving!” or “Thank you for helping me with the groceries.” Let your child experience success every day and feel like a “winner.” This will shift their self-perception to “I can do it!”

With this positive self-expectation, your child will be able to accomplish more, and their intrinsic motivation will continue to grow stronger.