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Motivation to produce quality work


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I'd love to have a discussion about motivation and quality of work.

 

Do your children do their best work for you at home?

If not, how do you handle it in elementary, middle school, and high school?

If so, why do you think they do?

How do you encourage high quality work without also encouraging perfectionism? and while keeping a love of learning?

 

In our homeschool, DS10 does his best work in his favorite subject (math) pretty consistently. In his least favorite subjects, he usually does the bare minimum - his work improves when he has outside accountability.

 

DS7 hasn't had much outside work yet, but he seems to freeze with outside assignments. He struggles with perfectionism. So far, his best work is done at home.

 

I struggle with how much to push for quality work day-by-day. Does a student need to put in their best effort on every assignment? I think doing things well is a good habit to develop, but I also see that taking this too far can lead to perfection (especially in those who are prone to that anyway). I was encouraged to do quality work consistently by grades, but I see the pitfalls of that system, too. And adults often need to be self-motivated, but how do you teach self-motivation?

 

Just curious about your experiences and thoughts.

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In our homeschool, DS10 does his best work in his favorite subject (math) pretty consistently. In his least favorite subjects, he usually does the bare minimum - his work improves when he has outside accountability.

 

Seems normal.    I'd say this is similar to one of my kids--best work is building Minecraft worlds and whatever he does graphic design-wise.  Worst work, schoolwork--all of it.   If only you could get a job doing something related to Minecraft........  But graphic design-wise, he's making laser-cut and laser-etched jewelry which is pretty cool.

Edited by tiuzzol2
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I'd love to have a discussion about motivation and quality of work.

 

Do your children do their best work for you at home?

If not, how do you handle it in elementary, middle school, and high school?

If so, why do you think they do?

How do you encourage high quality work without also encouraging perfectionism? and while keeping a love of learning?

 

In our homeschool, DS10 does his best work in his favorite subject (math) pretty consistently. In his least favorite subjects, he usually does the bare minimum - his work improves when he has outside accountability.

 

DS7 hasn't had much outside work yet, but he seems to freeze with outside assignments. He struggles with perfectionism. So far, his best work is done at home.

 

I struggle with how much to push for quality work day-by-day. Does a student need to put in their best effort on every assignment? I think doing things well is a good habit to develop, but I also see that taking this too far can lead to perfection (especially in those who are prone to that anyway). I was encouraged to do quality work consistently by grades, but I see the pitfalls of that system, too. And adults often need to be self-motivated, but how do you teach self-motivation?

 

Just curious about your experiences and thoughts.

Great question!

 

After many many many blunders where I expected DD to read my mind in elementary school, I went through a period where I had to determine what I meant by 'quality' how would I measure it, and if its developmentally appropriate for my DD to reach the level that I demand/expect.

 

Due to that introspection, middle school has been simpler than elementary. Expectations and routine is already set on both sides and she usually complies when I ask her to redo a piece of writing because we now have a common understanding of what quality looks like. Hence,she does her best work for me; at home.

 

Quality in Math and sciences is relatively easy to implement. Where my DD has struggled is quality in writing. I suspect this will continue to improve as she matures as a person. Some aspects of academics just need maturity and life experience, iykwim.

 

wrt the bolded:

 

It depends. My DD is an aspiring scientist, so that's where her best is invested.

 

I'm not sure motivation can be taught. IME, I can only create an environment that is likely to keep her motivated or model it. Usually a hit or miss here. :D

Edited by Ebunny
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Obviously every child is different- so, Ymmv. What woks for me is to set the bar high and insist constantly that meeting certain standards is very important- this involves sitting at my son's elbow until he corrects his mistakes or sloppy work, doing the work again by myself and showing him how an accurate/error free/neatly written work looks like, going into long speeches on how and why to take pride in one's work, giving out pokémon stickers for excellent work, asking him how it feels when he has accomplished something with flawless perfection (in his sports and music) and ask him if he would like to feel that way more often by being careful. Both my DH and I work in professions where precision and accuracy are very critical - it can make or break our livelihoods - so, I put more effort into teaching how to produce high quality work.

 

And I also put my child in martial arts and music - both of which have low tolerance for errors when learned from professionals who are sticklers for details and set high standards. So, there is that as well ...

 

Edited by mathnerd
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Obviously every child is different- so, Ymmv. What woks for me is to set the bar high and insist constantly that meeting certain standards is very important- this involves sitting at my son's elbow until he corrects his mistakes or sloppy work, doing the work again by myself and showing him how an accurate/error free/neatly written work looks like, going into long speeches on how and why to take pride in one's work, giving out pokémon stickers for excellent work, asking him how it feels when he has accomplished something with flawless perfection (in his sports and music) and ask him if he would like to feel that way more often by being careful. Both my DH and I work in professions where precision and accuracy are very critical - it can make or break our livelihoods - so, I put more effort into teaching how to produce high quality work.

 

And I also put my child in martial arts and music - both of which have low tolerance for errors when learned from professionals who are sticklers for details and set high standards. So, there is that as well ...

 

 

Same here.

I can add one thing that for my kids sport is not only the best treatment for perfectionism and careless, but it is also the most important motivator to reach/stay at the top performance groups\levels. While all the coaches always require top performance and motivate them to win, they are constantly reassuring that it is ok to do mistakes and how to turn mistake into successful learning opportunities. 

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Every child is different. Some are internally motivated while others need external motivators. I don't know how much can be taught and how much is a personality trait. Finding each child's currency...what motivates them is key and I think the words you use can help with reducing perfectionist tendencies. (The book Mindset by Carol Dweck is and interesting read.) There is a huge difference between encouraging them to do their personal best vs. expecting "perfect" from them. I don't think they need to put full effort on every single assignment but you, as their teacher, needs to decide what you expect and what's acceptable if it doesn't hit the mark.

 

My youngest is internally motivated and always does her best at everything...sometimes doing better than I would expect and stressing herself in the process. Very early on she dealt with perfectionist tendencies but music lessons helped decrease that in her while at the same time teaching her the benefits of careful practice and attention to details. When talking about music with her in the beginning, we talked about practicing to "make things easier" rather than practicing to perfection and encouraged experimentation with her music so she could see sometimes "mistakes" turn out ok. 

 

My middle ds always did better work for people outside the home than for me. When young, he needed outside motivations like goal charts and rewards and me sitting next to him most of the time. He would get by with the least he could at home so going to public school for middle and part of high school was better for him. School work was never tops in his idea of things that needed to be done. He only does his best work when it is something he is interested and invested in (music and hands on stuff) and I had to figure out how to use that tendency in him when he came back home to finish high school.

 

My oldest was somewhere in between the two. 

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