encouraging diligence and motivating a child to work hard

[mamamindy]

I am not sure how to title this thread.  I need some ideas.  I have a child with emotional struggles, discipline issues (in all areas - this is not just "school" related) and my main focus has been patience with her, trying not to compare, being patient, positive reinforcement/praise, remembering how she perceives love, did I mention being patient with her?  It's been hard.  But she's worth it, of course. :)  

 

But as for "school" things - how do I encourage her to do her BEST work?  She's so sensitive that I have to be careful here.  For example, I start with praising some aspect of her handwriting, and then just show her ONE thing that needs some work.  I'm not seeing any benefit yet...  She still just tries to get her work done as quickly as possible so she can get to whatever it is calling her name - a toy/play/whatever.  Even if we're coloring - and she LOVES to color - she will just slap on some color.  Redirection to do better work is met with her emotional problems at being criticized.  FTR I am gentle.  I am talking about things she CAN do.  Problem is, if she's not internally motivated, she does poor work.  After years of being reminded, she still has to be redirected to basic chores.  Now if it's something she WANTS to do (that's still a chore - like feeding the dog) she won't forget.

 

I know I'm just throwing  a lot out there, and there are a variety of issues going on...  I'm just needing some strategies.  She's a very bright 7.5yo that lacks emotional maturity.

[lewelma]

I have a boy like this.  The trick is to have your dd decide what *she* wants to improve.

 

So for the handwriting, we went online and looked at lots of different handwriting styles and ds decided on two features that he wanted to put into his writing - a flicky 'y' and a connected th (he prints).  So we started there.  Once he had those down, he decided to try a few other stylistic features.  Then he decided on cursive capitals.  And over the period of a year, he improved his handwriting bit by bit by *wanting* to make it 'represent him'. 

 

Another thing that has worked over here is charts and graphs to keep track of quality of work.  But the key is that *he* gets to decide if it the work was worth a blue, green, yellow, or red (no grades at age 7 over here).  So once again self determined.

 

The key has been to develop the internal motivation, and in our experience *my* comments, encouragement, suggestions do not help.  Instead, I encourage his personal evaluation of his work, or his personal evaluation of how well he kept to the schedule, etc. 

 

and yes, of course, there is lots of patience needed.

 

Ruth in NZ

[Momof3littles]

I have a child like this, and TBH, what helped the most was reading the book Mindset by Dweck to work on my vocabulary and how I framed things, as well as just waiting while he matured.  It is much better now at approaching 11 yo than it was a few years ago.  Much, much better, really.  At 7.5, my son definitely struggled a LOT with taking any gentle criticism.  Even maybe 1-2 years ago, asking him to edit a paper , even when it was defined as a step before he started, etc. made him freak out.  I think now at almost 11 he realizes this is not a personal attack on his writing skill.  We discuss how scientists, authors, etc. write and rewrite papers, books, etc over and over again, and how that is just how the process works.  I almost ripped my hair out at times.

 

I thought I did a good job of focusing on effort vs. end product and so forth, but the Mindset book helped me develop a more extensive vocabulary regarding a growth mindset.  We also pointed out our own struggles with learning all sorts of things, including as adults, and let the kids see us work through them (getting back in shape, learning a new hobby, etc).  We read some biographies and so forth of people who struggled and struggled but persevered and reached their goals.  I don't know how much that helped, but it reinforced what we talked about a lot.

 

Some other ideas: would she enjoy editing other people's work, maybe something like Daily Paragraph Editing?  My son went through a phase where I think he enjoyed catching other people's mistakes :) Can she help develop her own checklist for what constitutes a good effort?  If she's writing, this might start off as simple things, some of which are not a particular challenge, like capitalizing and punctuating all sentences, along with a few other things she comes up with. Then over time, maybe she can add to her own checklist.  I know it has taken my kids until they were beyond your DC's age to develop the skill to identify mistakes in math and so forth with any level of regularity.  Until they hit a certain maturity point, it just really didn't seem to happen, even when I showed them ways to double check their work.

 

I think at that age it is tough to get them to focus on giving every subject their best effort.  Even as adults, IME we prioritize, let some things slide a little while we focus on other things. I know my kids can do quite well in any given subject, but getting them to put their best effort into an essay on a given week might mean I have to ease up my expectations a bit elsewhere. 

[Momof3]

Some strategies that have worked here:

 

1) Having regular one-on-one 'talk times' so I have an opportunity to talk out any concerns/burdens and regularly communicate love/praise to each child without the discussion being directly tied to the emotion of any daily 'happening.' 

 

This has been *so* helpful with my sensitive/emotional/introspective/potentially-insecure 6yo. We have 'talk time' two nights a week before bed, and then other times like walking together to the library or munching crackers at the kitchen table while the littles are napping. We small-talk, get to know each other better, I listen to whatever he has to say and try to draw out what he doesn't say, give him a chance to talk out frustrations, suggestions, etc. I've found this infinitely more helpful than trying to talk the same things out in the middle of math class. ;) We're becoming good friends this way...and we often tell each other - let's talk about *that* during our next 'talk time.' 

 

 

2) Having fixed 'play' times and 'work' times

 

This way, the kids know they can't just rush through their schoolwork and run outside... We have a set time for doing math, a set time for doing language, etc. Then there's a 'make up' time later in the morning for finishing anything they didn't get finished earlier. If they *did* finish it all, they can use that as free time. Same thing with chores...they can't leave to go play until the timer goes off, or they've had all their chores checked by me & are dismissed.

 

 

3) Positive attitude is important - but so is good handwriting!

 

Ds6 struggled with handwriting last year... I stayed positive, but I also gave him an extra writing assignment for "extra practice" to help him improve... He fixed his sloppy handwriting almost overnight - just so he wouldn't have to do the extra worksheet anymore - and now everyone comments on his super-neat writing!

 

 

4) Making *all* chores fun...

 

I don't think it's at all abnormal for kids this age to struggle with internal motivation. You want to work towards that, for sure. But I would start with helping her to see that work *is* fun. Any job can be enjoyable - and it's actually really easy to make it enjoyable. If you let her be part of the "how-can-we-make-this-fun" process, she'll learn to make work fun on her own.

[mamamindy]

I have a boy like this.  The trick is to have your dd decide what *she* wants to improve.

 

So for the handwriting, we went online and looked at lots of different handwriting styles and ds decided on two features that he wanted to put into his writing - a flicky 'y' and a connected th (he prints).  So we started there.  Once he had those down, he decided to try a few other stylistic features.  Then he decided on cursive capitals.  And over the period of a year, he improved his handwriting bit by bit by *wanting* to make it 'represent him'. 

 

Another thing that has worked over here is charts and graphs to keep track of quality of work.  But the key is that *he* gets to decide if it the work was worth a blue, green, yellow, or red (no grades at age 7 over here).  So once again self determined.

 

The key has been to develop the internal motivation, and in our experience *my* comments, encouragement, suggestions do not help.  Instead, I encourage his personal evaluation of his work, or his personal evaluation of how well he kept to the schedule, etc. 

 

and yes, of course, there is lots of patience needed.

 

Ruth in NZ

Thanks, that really helps.  After some issues with transitioning to cursive (at her request) I had her choose her next handwriting book, but now I realize we/she needs to set some specific goals - like having uniform loops, etc.  I like the idea of having her evaluate her work.  We were doing something like that in which she will circle her favorite "y" or whatever.  I have forgotten about that and we should pick it back up.

 

Some other things: I will often ask her if she would rather tell me about the story (this is how we narrate) or draw me a picture.  Lately she'll choose to draw a picture, and slap something down in about 30 seconds flat, rather than go through the effort of re-telling.  Normally I would be fine with a picture re-telling, but I feel like she's just being sloppy/distracted.  She hasn't always been like this...maybe she's bored?  Another example, DH (artist) will often draw them pictures (at their request) to color in at church.  This last time he went to great effort to include little details that she would like, and hopefully keep her interested.  Nope, she shows him her coloring less than a minute later.  I don't get it.  I try not to get offended when she doesn't meet my expectations...however, this time DH explained to her that he put a lot of effort into his drawing and would like it if she would put effort into her coloring it in.  He wasn't criticizing her.  She just got upset. :(

 

eta: I feel like I was complaining above.  Apologies.  I greatly appreciate all the encouragement.

[lewelma]

 

 

Some other things: I will often ask her if she would rather tell me about the story (this is how we narrate) or draw me a picture.  Lately she'll choose to draw a picture, and slap something down in about 30 seconds flat, rather than go through the effort of re-telling.  Normally I would be fine with a picture re-telling, but I feel like she's just being sloppy/distracted.  She hasn't always been like this...maybe she's bored?  Another example, DH (artist) will often draw them pictures (at their request) to color in at church.  This last time he went to great effort to include little details that she would like, and hopefully keep her interested.  Nope, she shows him her coloring less than a minute later.  I don't get it.  I try not to get offended when she doesn't meet my expectations...however, this time DH explained to her that he put a lot of effort into his drawing and would like it if she would put effort into her coloring it in.  He wasn't criticizing her.  She just got upset. :(

 

Well, if she wants to go fast, think of some cool fast drills she could do.  And time her!  And then graph her progress over a month.

 

How fast can you memorize this poem?

How fast can you do your times tables?

How fast can you get ready for bed?

How fast can you memorize your latin vocab?

How fast can you run around the house?

Get her the Draw Squad, because he has you do speed drill with the basic art forms.

 

Celebrate the speed focus for a month or a year or whatever it takes to get it out of her system.  And if she can do half of her day fast, perhaps then you can talk about snail work, or something.  Have her act it out - the rabbit and the turtle.  Celebrate both, rather than trying to focus just on one.

 

Just an out-of-the-box idea! :001_smile:

 

Ruth in NZ

[IsabelC]

Probably others will disagree, but we avoid telling the kids that their work is good when it isn't. We do try to say something positive when possible, to appreciate effort not just results, and not to be unrealistic in our expectations, but we don't engage in the ritual of telling them 'good job / well done / that's great / I love it' etc for every single thing they do, even if it's lousy work and they dashed it off in seconds. You can require a decent effort without critizing. For example, if she just slaps on the color, you can simply hand her another copy of the coloring picture and gently say something like "I can't wait to see this one when you've colored it carefully".

[Guest tewyuanagu]

I know my kids can do quite well in any given subject, but getting them to put their best effort into an essay on a given week might mean I have to ease up my expectations a bit elsewhere. 

[sewingmama]

My DD is like that. Nothing I tried was really working. If she isn't interested then she just wants it done and over.

 

What helped the most was having her cousin who is 6 months younger then her stay for a week and DD noticed that her cousin had beautiful writing and spelling and that she actually liked to write.

 

Since she left my DD who hates to write has been writing, writing, writing and her effort, spelling and neatness has really improved. Since DD is my oldest she doesn't really have anyone to compare herself to and I think seeing her cousins work helped her visualise what was possible for her age. KWIM. I think that is one advantage of public school...students can see what standard is possible by observing other students their age.

[mamamindy]

Thanks so much.  This encouragement really means so much to me.