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Motivating kids to be on their best behavior – everyone seems to have an “ideal” way to do it. Sticker charts. Marble jars. Reward menus. Token economies. Time out. Privilege removal. Its overwhelming and complicated!
Or is it?….
I have held off talking about motivational strategies because I view them as a last resort – at least the sort of motivational tools that I just listed. In fact, I have already discussed motivation at length in other posts (click here and here!), but it’s not the sort of motivation that probably comes to mind for most parents when they are looking for help with their kids’ behavior.
Read on for the big secret to motivating kids….
Keep It Positive
That’s right. I revealed the secret already, so early in the post! It’s so incredibly important for motivation that I didn’t want you to breeze past it!
Think about this …when you establish a positive relationship with your child and focus your attention on his good behaviors, you ARE motivating him!
It has likely never occurred to you (or most parents) that you – just you – can be a motivator for your child. Kids, even many moody teenagers, crave their parents’ attention and approval. CRAVE it!
Personally, when it comes to motivation, I don’t have time to keep track of points my children earn. I don’t stay on top of stickers or marbles. I forget that it’s Tuesday and they get to choose something from their reward menu. Free yourself from the burden of remembering which privilege your child lost for today!
Motivate them with your love and attention for all of those things they are doing right that are so often ignored!
Now that you have revisited this post and this post detailing how to reward your child with attention, we can move on. If you didn’t revisit them, do so now! Using other motivational strategies won’t work if you don’t already have the foundation of a positive relationship in place. (Additionally you should also work on teaching better behavior before attempting other motivational strategies your kids – see this post!)
Now you read them, right? Good job! I’m proud of you! Go ahead and take a little time to work on those strategies first!
If you already have a positive environment in place, let’s talk about what else you can do if a little motivational push is needed. And I emphasize – if needed. There’s no point in making extra work for yourself if you are able to achieve acceptable (hey, they aren’t perfect) behavior from your kids.
Keep It Simple
Luckily at our house, we have been able to keep it fairly simple. For the most part, we give lots of attention to behaviors we like and ignore behaviors we would like to see less of (often in the form of relocating the offender to his or her room). For a little extra push, simple tangible rewards almost always do the trick.
Our 3-year-old is incredibly motivated by tiny treats, like a few candies or a small scoop of ice cream. (This small incentive was sufficient to train him to sleep alone!)
Our kids are expected to help out around the house just because they are part of our family, but occasionally we give the older kids some cash for going above and beyond.
All of the kids enjoy a spontaneous trip to the Dollar Tree, funded by mom and dad. These little random motivators, combined with praise, for exceptional behavior have been effective for maintaining good behavior in our kids.
Have you been reading this and saying, “Pfft. These kids are nothing like my kids. My kids would run right over these motivators on their way to consume what little patience I have left….”?
I sincerely hope this isn’t you, but if it is…first, I encourage you to revisit the posts I mentioned above! Second, don’t fret, I have more ideas for you! But seriously, review the posts I mentioned above!
Keep It Natural or Logical
Another fairly easy way to go is natural and logical consequences. Natural consequences are simply what would happen to your child if you didn’t intervene, if you let life happen.
You threw your toy? Now you have a broken toy. You don’t feel like washing your plate? You have a dirty plate for the next meal. You spent all of your money on Robux (a video game currency, for those of you without a tween)? Now you don’t have money for that movie with your friends.
Natural consequences are sort of like giving your child a glimpse of adulthood. Life will handle it for you, no need to dole out additional punishments.
Logical consequences can be used if there are no natural consequences for a behavior.
You don’t want to pick up your toys? You now have less toys. You climbed the neighbor’s fence and broke it? You will have to pay for the repairs (or complete equivalent chores). You unrolled several rolls of toilet paper? You will be spending a good bit if your day rerolling several rolls of toilet paper.
When your child misbehaves, what consequence makes sense? That’s a logical consequence.
Remember to focus most of your energy on good behavior. Spending your whole day on consequences will quickly deteriorate the positive relationship you have worked so hard to build. Save these motivational bad boys for the major behavioral botches.
Keep It Fun
Let’s take things in a more positive direction.
One of my favorite motivational techniques (credit to my postdoctoral supervisor) is the reward jar/job jar. It’s not only fun for your kids, it’s also a little bit fun for you!
As always, set your expectations, ideally in writing (like household rules), so that your kids know what you want to see from them. When they are meeting expectations or otherwise being good (or even just ok), randomly tell them to pick something from the reward jar.
Random is key – never give a reward when its asked for! I like to say “we’ll see” or “maybe later” in reward request situations.
When your kids aren’t meeting expectations, send them to the job jar to choose their fate! They can decide when to complete the job; however, they don’t get access to anything fun until it’s done! They won’t last very long sitting in their room with nothing to do.
Much like creating a positive environment, shoot for more rewards than jobs each day!
Keep It Real
If you need something a little more robust or perhaps your kids are older and would not find the reward jar very inspiring, try this.
Remind your children what you expect from them (again, some posted rules are helpful), and then let them earn their privileges by meeting your expectations!
Not one or two extra privileges, but ALL their privileges.
If your child met expectations the day before, she can have all of her fun things – tablets, phones, toys, games, TV, etc. If she didn’t meet expectations, then she can hang out in her room with nothing fun to do until she meets expectations again. The time frame can be whatever works best for you and your child – maybe before and after lunch is more feasible.
For younger kids, you can simply have all of the toys, ideally out of reach but still visible. If your child is meeting expectations, he can choose one or two toys to play with. This next part is great for parents – he needs to clean up his toys and turn them back in to you to get a different toy! As long as he is still meeting expectations, of course.
You may have noticed that good motivational strategies tend to mimic life. Consequences often happen naturally or at least should make sense in relation to the behavior. Privileges are earned for meeting expectations, much like adults are paid for their work. Rewards are given randomly for a job well done, much like bonuses are given for going above and beyond, not because they are requested.
Keep It Positive…Again!
I want to emphasize one last time that I view motivational tools as more of a garnish in your parenting cookbook.
The main ingredients: developing a positive relationship with your kids and effectively teaching them better behavior.
In fact, in their book Parenting the Strong-Willed Child, seasoned child psychologists Dr. Rex Forehand and Dr. Nicholas Long have only one paragraph discussing tangible rewards. Literally one paragraph in their 260-page book. Not a single mention of sticker charts or reward menus!
So, try not to jump right to rewards and punishments. Your attention and approval is far more powerful of a motivator than you realize!