How to Motivate the UnMotivated Student?

Parents Forum
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<p>Dear Parents,</p>

<p>As many of you are more experienced in life, I would like to ask you a question that I believe your experiential wisdom will be helpful in providing insightful perspectives: How do you attempt to motivate a student who is not motivated to learn?</p>

<p>P.S. I am not referring to forcing someone to study, but rather trying to illuminate an enthusiasm inside one. Also, if believed to be beneficial, a brief background of the situation can be provided.</p>

<p>Sincerely,
A Concerned Sibling/Cousin</p>

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<p>Bump.
This thread got knocked to the bottom of the page without a response. Would appreciate if insights were shared.</p>

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<p>I don’t think there is any way you can motivate someone else. Some kids are helped by college visits where they see that college will be very different from high school. And some people get motivated by spending a few years in dead end jobs and realizing that a degree will give them more opportunities. Two hours is not exactly a lot of time to expect an answer. Most of us parents work and you can’t count on us to be checking CC all the time. I’m on lunch break.</p>

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<p>2 hours- very impatient. I looked at the post several minutes ago. Too little information to be of use. So much depends. Also- relatives can be obnoxious in their efforts to help- is that you? You can make things worse.</p>

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</p>

<p>For a grade school kid, I’d make it fun. </p>

<p>For someone HS or older, I wouldn’t even attempt it because you can’t. </p>

<p>For some people, school is a never ending source of anxiety. Having other people tell them what they should do is also a never ending source of anxiety. The more pressure they receive, the more anxiety they get, and the less motivated they get. </p>

<p>People get motivated when they get self-motivated. There is positive self-motivation, i.e., this is cool. There is also negative motivation - this job sucks, I wish I got an education or fear - my parents are going to throw me on the street. I think the later does damage. </p>

<p>Life is long and self-motivation later can be more productive. </p>

<p>Some people never get motivated to learn. Every morning at a busy intersection, I see the same beggars with the “homeless veterans” signs collecting at the stoplights. They seem to do ok. </p>

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<p>Also, does the student have a learning disability?</p>

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<p>@mathmom‌
Two hours isn’t long, but the thread seemed as if it would hit the second page, where it might have gotten lost, so I decided to bump it early. I am afraid that the first sentence of your post may be correct. My incentive isn’t to forcefully motivate; I want to spark an interest in learning, but I don’t know if that is even possible. I would prefer one to not spend a few years in a dead-end job after performing very poorly in school as educational opportunities at top institutions are becoming less accessible for late bloomers. :/</p>

<p>@wis75‌
Check the first sentence of my paragraph dedicated to @mathmom. Apologize for the impatience.
Here’s the background:
I have cousins at top universities(UPenn, GTown, UMichigan, UCLA) and cousins who graduated from top universities(Carnegie, Princeton). I have cousins at lower-tier institutions as well. All cousins have something in common that the next generation of relatives lacks: an interest in learning about their academic interests.</p>

<p>The next generation(cousins and siblings currently in high school) doesn’t have a passion for school-related academic. Homework is done late. No attention is payed in class. Poor scores are received on tests(70-85). No involvement in clubs or after-school activities. 5-6 Hours a day is spent on Xbox/LoL.</p>

<p>They visited top universities with their school. I briefly introduced them to computer science, which is a topic they haven’t covered since it is not taught in their school. I study hours on end to set a good example. Took them to visit the top university I will attend. I haven’t seen any type of revitalization. They don’t seem to have an interest in anything(music, math, science, literature, history, philosophy, psychology, etc) other than Xbox/LoL.</p>

<p>It’s very saddening to see potential rotting. I am not pushy in trying to help, but get affected even more so when their parents that care dejectedly mention their child is not performing well.</p>

<p>I hope that information is sufficient.</p>

<p>@ClassicRockerDad‌
Thanks for reply. I want them to be self-motivated with positive motivation and not have to experience the negative motivation. I am scared that they may not be able to transform the negative into a type of motivation, and that the negativity might be self-destructive later on.</p>

<p>@bopper‌
No documented learning disability. Doubt that there is any. They aren’t slow; they just seem lazy and uninterested when it comes to doing anything related to school.</p>

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<p>I think that it’s important for the kids not to experience their parent’s anxiety. Your siblings need to understand that. That can be pretty destructive and make them always feel like a failure. It’s a vicious cycle. One needs hope to be motivated and constant pressure destroys that. </p>

<p>There is a role for parents to set limits. I think that 5-6 hours of Xbox every day is unhealthy. I would limit the Xbox without telling the kids what they should do instead except to exercise. </p>

<p>I told my younger daughter as she was transitioning to HS that she should take courses at the level she was comfortable with. Her aspiration was to become a chef. We supported that but I told her that if I were her, I would make sure I learned math well because you will have a financial life someday no matter what you do and I thought the whole foreclosure crisis was caused by people who relied on others to do the math for them and got ripped off. A clear understanding of math through calculus will put you at a competitive advantage in quantitative thinking. While you might not need the calculus, having done it, the math you need for most financial things will be easy. </p>

<p>Second of all, these grades are far from failing. You interact with people every day who had these grades in HS and have made happy lives for themselves. </p>

<p>So basically, if they go to college, they are headed for colleges of a lower caliber, and careers of less prestige. </p>

<p>Many happy people take this route without feeling like failures. </p>

<p>Someone on this board once said that you have to love the kid on the couch and support their aspirations and their decisions. </p>

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<p>Set a good example. </p>

<p>When you interact with these cousins, take an interest in their lives and listen to them. You may pick up that they are interested in something and then you can nudge them toward pursuing that interest. For example, if a cousin says “I had sushi for the first time and I loved it” you could ask why and was it surprising and is he interested in anime or other aspects of Japanese culture. Draw out his interest and plant a seed of wanting to know more and go further. </p>

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<p>@ClassicRockerDad‌
I don’t think the kids do experience their parents’ anxiety. The only times that I hear the parents’ complaints is when I sit with the adult group. I don’t hear them mention it when their children are within hearing-distance.</p>

<p>I don’t know if I have come off as an elitist, but that is not what I am. I am fine with them attending lower caliber institutions and having careers of less prestige. I just feel that they shouldn’t be settling for less when they could be better. Regardless, they will have my support.</p>

<p>@Lizardly‌
“Draw out his interest and plant a seed of wanting to know more and go further.”
Thank you! This phrase perfectly describes what I’m trying to do. That is the method I’ve been using; I think that I’ll start to look out for subtler cues and try to link other topics to the one shown interest in.</p>

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<p>Do you really mean “be a good student?”</p>

<p>I’ve never met a kid who didn’t want to learn. But not all kids want to learn what is taught in school, or the way it is taught in school. </p>

<p>Good luck. I have no clue. We bribed ours with material rewards. </p>

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<p>I was going to say bribery works for some. It’s not how you WANT to do it but…</p>

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<p>@poetgrl‌
They aren’t very interested in what is taught in school. They are interested more in playing games(Xbox/LoL/StarCraft/Dota/Minecraft) and watching YouTube <em>celebrities</em> play these games with commentary.</p>

<p>Bribery with material rewards hasn’t been attempted yet. :P</p>

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<p>If those were my kids, the Xbox would be taken away until they were putting in a regular sincere, appropriate effort and they achieved grades I thought were reasonable for their ability level. Often, you get more out of things if you put more effort into them. If they took the work more seriously, rather than racing through it so they could get to Xbox, they might find more that interests them. It was certainly the case in my experience and in my kids’ that honors level classes were more interesting and the regular classes were pretty mind-numbingly boring. But you do have to put in more effort. </p>

<p>Of course, it’s entirely possible that they wouldn’t get more interested but at least they would have achieved the necessary educational background to pursue interests should those develop as they mature more.</p>

<p>From the fact that this is going on though, I suspect the parents aren’t going to be on board with this.</p>

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<p>Either the family values educational achievement or they don’t.</p>

<p>An outsider’s influence is limited; imo the best you can do is “catch them doing good” and give them positive feedback for it.</p>

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<p>@scholarme‌
Family values educational achievement; the children don’t.</p>

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<h1>15 If their parents value it, one would think you could see it in the kids by now.</h1>

<p>Parents who value education make ground rules that put schoolwork before video games, for one thing. They have their kids reading more than on the xbox, etc. They praise & reward high test scores, school projects, etc. So maybe the parents think they value education, but they don’t actually value it, if you can see the difference.</p>

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<p>@scholarme‌
My parents were very strict with me; I took every honors and AP class available to me, got 2300+ SAT, participated in many volunteer charity activities, and am now at UMichigan.
They weren’t so strict with my siblings; my siblings aren’t performing so well. The same can be said about the previously mentioned parents and their children. Each mentioned parent has a successful older child, who the parent was strict towards, that graduated from or are attending top universities and not-so-successful younger children, who the parent isn’t as strict towards, that are not performing too well in high school.
Plus, I would like to emphasize that good performance is praised & rewarded.</p>

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<p>That’s tough when the parenting is inconsistent.</p>

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<p>@scholarme‌
Yeah, they all told me that they thought that the younger siblings would take after the older ones(my generation) and follow in their footsteps without the same strictness. Doesn’t seem like it worked out the way they thought it would, though. :/</p>