Creating School Motivation in Children
Motivation has an important effect on human behavior, It triggers, directs and enables us to continue our behaviors.
If we think about motivation in children's academic success; motivation helps determine the child's limits, abilities and success. For this reason, the academic success of children who have motivation problems in studying is also affected. And the most common complaints families have about their children are their children's lack of motivation in studies and motivation problems.
Mostly, families complain that their children do not study without their guidance and that their children are unwilling to study. Failure to provide children's attention and motivation puts families and teachers in a difficult position.
In order to increase children's motivation and solve the problem, first of all; it is necessary to know what motivation the child has. Whether it is a child or an adult, people experience motivation in two ways. One of these is internal motivation and the other is external motivation.
If we look at internal motivation; this motivation is the person's own motivation, it includes values, desires and goals. People with internal motivation;
- Work more effectively
- Be more consistent
- Learn better
- Try different ways to succeed.
External motivation; It includes the values, goals and interests of people that affect the person and is caused by external rewards. The child acts entirely for these rewards. Such children need constant guidance, they get bored easily with tasks that are not completed in a short time, and their most obvious characteristic is that they procrastinate. Such children look for the reason for their success or failure in other factors. In our society, attitudes are mostly aimed at increasing external motivation in order to increase children's motivation. For example; Giving money and gifts every time a child is successful will help the child develop extrinsic motivation rather than intrinsic motivation. When this happens, the child begins to attribute every success and reason for being successful to external factors. To give another example; a child who says his pencil broke during an exam or children who think "the teacher is obsessed with me" attribute their failures to external factors.
Therefore, it is important to establish the child's intrinsic motivation from a young age. And instead of criticizing their children, families should first try to understand their motivation type and take appropriate measures.
What Can We Do to Increase Children's School Motivation?
If we look at what families can do to increase children's school motivation;
- First of all, families should make their children feel that they are on the same team. Opposing the child, being stubborn, punishing, judging them will not yield any results and will also damage the existing relationship. If families exhibit negative attitudes towards their children, children will adopt a defensive attitude towards their family instead of thinking about themselves.
- Families can apply the "after doing this" rule to their children. Thus, knowing that children with underdeveloped planning skills will do the activity they want after completing their lessons will help them remember what their priorities are.
- If your child's grades are falling and they are not studying; It is time for you to structure what your child cannot do for himself. You can start by removing the distracting devices in his room to a common area and the less stimuli there are in the room, the less distracted the child will be. You can plan your child's study time and say "no computer until homework is done". Study time includes the completion of all homework and the child can at least be busy with reviewing and correcting the lessons during this time.
- Support study time, sit together and support the child until he gets his work done. You can divide the homework he will do into pieces and decide together which one he will do first or next. One of the best ways to ensure the child's motivation is to prevent the time they spend at the beginning of the lesson from being boring for them. Therefore, the time spent at the beginning of the lesson should be well arranged. Instead of very long periods, it may be more motivating to study for 20-25 minutes and take a break.
- Expectations should not be placed on the child beyond his capacity and rewarding even the small activities he does at school with words of praise and being reciprocated in this way can increase the child's interest. By giving your child small responsibilities, let him see that there are things he can do and achieve, this will also develop his self-confidence.
