As parents, we all want motivated, confident kids who strive to be their best selves. But how do we help them get there?
In The Gift of Failure author Jessica Lahey examines different ways parents and educators try to motivate kids, what works, and what doesn’t. One of the most commonly used and least effective ways is “extrinsic motivation,” sometimes referred to as “the carrot and the stick.” If a child is paid for good grades or for doing housework, for example, that’s extrinsic motivation. Research shows that extrinsic motivators may work for a short time, but they are not a solid, long-term solution. Instead, kids need to find what drives them from the inside and rely on that.
Parents can help kids find their intrinsic motivation by focusing on three key aspects: autonomy, competence, and connection.
Autonomy & Autonomy-Supportive Parenting
Autonomy, or self-direction, is crucial to helping a child develop skills and self-awareness to really know who they are and have a sense of agency over how they live their life. Autonomy-supportive parenting is a middle ground between directive parenting, where parents are always there telling the kids what the next step is, and permissive parenting, where kids have most of the control. It is a flexible framework that allows parents to assess where their child is, provide support only when needed, and allow children to feel the consequences (both positive and negative) of their choices.
Sounds simple enough, right? However, autonomy-supportive parenting can feel really uncomfortable because it’s inevitably messy! Example: What if your child does a stellar job on their homework but forgets to pack it and you find it lying on the floor after they’ve left for school? And what if you even had plenty of time to drop it off for them? To support your kid’s autonomy in this situation, you would leave the homework on the floor and let them experience whatever happens next – if you delivered the homework, your child would miss out on the opportunity to learn from this.
Another way parents can support autonomy is by offering choice. For a toddler, it could be as simple as, “Would you like to wear the green hat or the yellow hat?” For older kids, “You need to complete all of these tasks by dinnertime, but the order is up to you.” You need to be available if your kids have questions about how to do things, but otherwise let them get down to the tasks all by themselves. There surely will be mess-ups – that’s the point. And, your kid will (eventually) learn from them.
Competence
Competence, or the ability to do things successfully or efficiently, is also important to helping kids find what drives them. The magic here is that kids who achieve competence then go on to seek even more competence. One of the best ways to gain skills and get more competent is to try, get a little frustrated, keep trying, and make a little more progress. For author Jessica Lahey, she was stunned to realize that because she had wanted to avoid the frustration and time involved with her child tying their own shoes, at 9 years old they couldn’t do it themselves. By swooping in and tying shoes for them she had inadvertently supported this learned helplessness.
If, like Jessica, parents help kids totally avoid the frustrations they encounter, kids begin to lose the feeling that they can affect what’s happening around them (“self-efficacy”). Higher levels of self-efficacy lead to kids’ greater overall satisfaction, ease, and even confidence, so letting them work through frustration is critical. Many experts in child development talk about this frustration as the learning space – and it is crucial.
Gaining competence is a process, and sometimes it will be most helpful if parents can provide “training wheels” as kids try new things and improve their skills. For a toddler, learning how to button or zip their own clothes is a difficult and important skill and, as a parent, you can support your toddler by giving extra time in the morning so that they can learn to dress themselves. For a child in elementary school, remembering to pack their homework to bring it to school is a skill that requires practice. As a parent, you can set up a routine to try to ensure that your kids pack their homework the night before. When they forget it anyway, you can let the circumstances play out and you will actually help them become more competent by not not coming to the rescue by taking it to school for them.
Regardless of the skills your toddler, child, or teen are working on, it’s important to keep the long-term view: When kids have the skills to accomplish something, their confidence will naturally grow, they’ll be able to back that confidence up with real skills and mastery, and they will go on to seek even more competence. It’s an incredibly positive loop!
Connection
Kids want to be seen, heard, and loved for who they actually are. When parents show that they truly appreciate who their kid is, it goes a long way towards establishing a genuine, strong, and lasting connection. It’s important that kids feel they matter. You can show that by communicating empathy, engaging as a parent-consultant, encouraging rest and providing opportunities for them to help. If you want to dive deeper into this topic, you can review our article on the toxic achievement culture.
As Jessica Lahey says, “Love the kid you have, not the kid you wish you had.” Kids do not want to feel like they are loved based on their performance. Focusing more on the process and less on the outcome can be helpful. For instance, if they are showing you their artwork, you could compliment their color choices. And if they got a great grade on a paper, you could acknowledge how hard they must have worked on the research and ideas. The same goes for performance in other areas like sports, music, or whatever they are or working towards.
Let’s face it, though, sometimes it can feel really hard to build connection in the moment, especially when your own stories get in the way. Have you ever been watching your kid’s soccer or baseball game and felt your own thirst for competition and achievement start to creep in? Did you have a difficult relationship with one or more of your parents and is that affecting how you relate to your own child? Would you like to feel closer to your kid? If so, we want to invite you to join Mothering As Medicine, a trauma-informed parenting online course to promote kids’ physical and mental health that GetzWell’s Pediatric Integrative Medicine specialist, Rachel Gilgoff, MD, is co-teaching with New York Times bestselling author, doctor, researcher, and teacher, Lissa Rankin, MD. Together, with a community of those identifying as mothers, you will journey toward deeper love, connection, and healing with your child(ren). As a valued GetzWell member, you get a $50 discount off the regular price by entering the code MAM2025 upon registration.