6 Ways to Motivate Your Child

Whether you’re trying to encourage your child to complete homework (or e-learning assignments) or chores, there’s one truth: motivating your child can be tough.

As a parent, you might suspect that ADHD can interfere with your child’s ability to self-motivate — and you’d be correct. ADHD can impact your child’s executive function skills, which leads to poor time management, lack of motivation, etc.

If you’re struggling to get your child to work independently, keep reading. In this article, we’ll explore six ways to motivate your child.

1. Set Clear Expectations

One of the biggest sources of parent-child arguments is a breakdown in communication. It’s difficult (if not impossible) for a child to feel motivated to complete a task if he doesn’t fully understand the scope of what is being asked.

To set clear expectations, keep these tips in mind:

• Use language that your child is already familiar with
• Always explain tasks when you have your child’s full attention (e.g., turn off radio, tv, etc)
• Be as specific as possible (instead “do your chores” say “please sweep the kitchen floor and then take the trash outside”)

It’s also important to set time expectations too. If a child thinks he has unlimited hours to complete a task, it’s harder to get started. For example, saying “please finish reading your chapter by 6pm so we can go for a walk together” gives a specific time goal — and that helps with motivation too.

2. Make Sure Your Child Understands the Task at Hand

The next key to instilling motivation is to help your child accept responsibility for the task.

You can do this in a few ways:

• Have your child re-state your requests (this also lets you know if your child was paying attention to you)
• Keep a chore chart posted in the kitchen
• Have your child write his homework assignments on his schedule or daily planner

Sometimes children struggle with motivation if they don’t know what to do. For example, if you are asking your child to perform a new chore, demonstrate what you expect first. Show him how to sweep or put fresh sheets on the bed.

This step is key to avoiding the “But I didn’t know I had to do X, Y, Z” arguments.

3. Use Positive Reinforcement

Positive reinforcement can be a good motivator for a child with ADHD. In psychology, positive reinforcement refers to the introduction of a desirable or pleasant stimulus after a behavior. The stimulus is something that reinforces the desired behavior.

Here’s how it works:

In other words, positive reinforcement is something good (ie the stimulus) we give our child after they execute a behavior.

Examples of positive reinforcements include:

• Smiles
• Attention
• Words of encouragement
• Praise for effort e.g., “You worked hard cleaning up your toys!”

Positive reinforcement doesn’t have to be tangible like a sticker — but it could be. Positive reinforcements (whether it’s a smile or a cheerful word of encouragement) help your child develop internal motivation to get tasks done, whether that’s doing homework or completing a daily chore.

4. Stay Consistent with Consequences

Children with ADHD thrive with consistency. Whether you’re creating a schedule or determining consequences for not getting work done, consistency is key.

You can establish consistency by:

Setting household rules

Household rules should be established ahead of time. This way, when issues arise, you’re not caught trying to determine consequences on the spot. In a way, the household rules are the “enforcer” — you’re not the bad guy.

What does this look like? If your child didn’t finish homework, you might refer to the rules and say something like “Oh, Johnny. You won’t be able to play your video game after dinner because you didn’t get your homework done before we ate. That’s one of our rules.”

Why it works: in the future, the thought of a consequence might help motivate Johnny to get his homework done in a timely manner.

Consequences don’t need to be big or extravagant, but you do need to stay consistent.

Explore natural consequences

Another type of consequence is a natural consequence. These are consequences that occur naturally as a result of your child not getting something done.

Natural consequences teach their own lessons. For example, if your child turns in a late assignment, he’ll lose points. Or, if your child missed the bus, he might need to walk to school. Natural consequences are good teachers — when used within reason.

5. Track Your Child’s Progress

A child with ADHD might feel overwhelmed with a project or task before even starting. And that make it hard to get motivated.

To help motivate your child, teach your child how to break a big project into several smaller steps. Track the progress of each step, instead of just looking at the big picture.

Let’s look at a few examples:

Cleaning the bedroom

1. Ask your child to write down a list of everything that needs to get tidied. You might include things like “make bed” or “put away clean clothes” or “vacuum” or “pick up Legos”.
2. When your child completes a task, have him cross it off the list

Now, the chore seems much more manageable.

Doing homework

1. Have your child take out his assignment notebook
2. Focus on just one subject at a time
3. Cross off each assignment as it’s completed

Now, it’s easier to get motivated to finish homework when it’s just one subject at a time.

6. Invest Your Time

Even though you’re asking your child to finish his homework or start her chores, you may find that you’re spending a lot of your time devoted to motivating your child. And that’s okay. You’re helping to teach your child strategies that will carry into adulthood.

Eventually, you won’t need to provide as much guidance, but the repetition and the consistency will help your child — one step at a time.

Remember: Start with the little things, and gradually build up.

Explore Our Free Course on Motivating Your Child

This free course is a must-have for parents who need a little help encouraging their children to work on homework independently. You can apply some of these strategies when you’re encouraging your child to complete his or her chores too.

https://nextstep4adhd.com/courses/motivating-your-child-to-work-independently/

Need More Guidance?

Here at Next Step 4 ADHD, we take multidisciplinary and holistic approach to your child’s ADHD treatment.Whether your child needs medication management, therapy, or a combination, we can guide you with your next steps. We also offer parent coaching, to help you discover proven strategies to motivate and encourage children with ADHD.

To make an appointment, call us at 502-907-5908.