All children are motivated but not all are motivated to behave and work hard.  Some motivation comes from inside you and that’s called internal motivation, while some motivation comes from outside of you and that’s called external motivation.   Adults should emphasize children’s successes because success creates internal motivation, but they need to be careful because excessive praise distorts children’s motivation.  Dr. Po Bronson in his book NurtureShock points out “…the ability to repeatedly respond to failure by exerting more effort-instead of simply giving up-is a trait studied in psychology.  People with this trait, persistence, rebound well and can sustain their motivation through long periods of delayed gratification.”  Dr. Robert Cloninger at Washington University in St Louis stated “A person who grows up getting too frequent rewards will not have persistence, because they’ll quit when the rewards disappear.”

Positive motivations everyone can use are attention and praise, but in order for them to be effective they should be delivered after a desired behavior, be focused on the effort put forth by the child and be given intermittently.  Using positive motivations allows adults to become proactive to what children are doing and not reactive to misbehaviors.  Unsuccessful adults focus on children’s negative behaviors rather than their positive behaviors.  They tell children what they are doing wrong instead of what they’ve done correctly.  The misbehaviors unfortunately get all the attention.

Infants: Object Labeling – According to Dr. Michael Goldstein and Dr. Jennifer Schwade from Cornell University, one way an adult can support infant language is by labeling the objects that they use everyday.  “This is your stroller, blanket, dolly” etc.  Babies learn better when adults wait for the baby’s eyes to naturally be gazing at the object.  These actions help to motivate the baby’s language development.

Toddlers: Positive Rewards – B.F. Skinner, a psychologist from Harvard, discovered that actions that get attention get repeated.  Adults who learn to use a technique called “positive rewards” can motivate children’s positive behaviors.  To be effective the praised needs to be specific and should be aimed at the effort and not the child.  Focusing on children’s strengths and progress helps them feel successful, and success breeds more success, such as “I see you’re working very hard picking up the blocks.”

Preschoolers: Praise Junkie – Many time adults will say “you’re great” as a way to motivate their children and express their unconditional love.  Excessive praise distorts children’s motivation.  Researchers from Reed College and Stanford “…determined that praised students become risk-averse and lack perceived autonomy.”  They become afraid of not succeeding.  Judith Brook, a New York University professor of psychiatry, stated “Praise is important, but not vacuous praise.  It has to be based on a real thing-some skill or talent…”  An example might be “I like the way you are sharing your toys with your friends.”

Expect progress in children not perfection.