How to Motivate Our Kids

Does this sound familiar? “If you want to have friends over, you have to clean your room.” Or, “Finish doing your chores if you want to go out with your friends tonight.” As parents we quickly learn that if we tell our children that they will get a reward, then they are more likely to do what we have asked of them. In one sense, this is a fine way to go about things. It is how much of the world works. Do what you are supposed to do and you get rewarded. The problem comes when we teach our children that meeting their responsibilities is all about getting the reward. 

When our children are young it may be easy to get them to do what we want by giving some kind of reward, but as they get older it is important to guide our children from being extrinsically rewarded to understanding the intrinsic value of be a responsible person. 

So, why not give rewards? Rewarding a child every time they meet their responsibilities requires that you give a reward that is greater than the desire to do something different. You are simply creating an incentive that motivates kids to do something they’d rather not do because of something that they want instead. Rewards work because it appeals to the selfishness of a child’s heart. But, unfortunately, kids grow up asking the wrong questions: “What’s in it for me?” “Am I going to get anything out of this?”

So, is rewarding our children wrong? Absolutely not. Rewards are a wonderful incentive and great way to teach our children that there are benefits to doing a good job. Like anything else in parenting, however, try to find a balance between external and internal motivation. Check your words around your children. If you tend to overemphasize rewards and punishments in your parenting, you might want to make a change. Kids need to learn to do what is right because it is the right thing to do, not to just get a reward.