I can’t believe I going back to school tomorrow. I am going to be bored again!

We often wonder why so many people get to work on Monday and are waiting for Friday to arrive to post something cheerful about the week finally ending on their Facebook page. It seems they are amotivated people for at least 5 days out of 7. When lack of motivation is observed in children and teenagers, as parents we are very concerned and don’t always understand why. If children are not motivated by school or other activities they are bored and unhappy most of their childhood. As adults we could think it’s the teacher’s fault, I went through the same experience, that’s life or it will be better once he or she chooses his higher studies – in fact that actually might never happen if nothing is motivating enough as the child grows up.

Well as a matter of fact, there has been research showing that motivation has many sources mainly coming from psychological needs. After more than 20 years of research, Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci, both professors of psychology at the University of Rochester in the US, put together the self-determination theory in 2000, which gives an understanding of self-motivation by intrinsic motivation based on three psychological needs: competence, autonomy and relatedness. These two researchers show that satisfying these needs leads wellbeing and a meaningful life.

The self-determination theory looks at three types of motivations: amotivation, extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. Amativation means no motivation at all for engaging in an activity for example, children who are doing an activity that is outside their control, because they are forced to. If too frequent it results in a lack of understanding the consequences of their actions. An extrinsic motivation comes from external factors such as rewards or praise. They can be positive or negative. An example of positive extrinsic motivation would be a teenager wanting to do the best he can in his written exams because it will help him get on the school newspaper team. An example negative extrinsic motivation would be to work hard on a math problem only to get a toy parents have promised. It is negative because it lowers the motivation when used as the only strategy. Where there is no reward the same child will not be motivated to do the activity. This is the overjustification effect.

Research actually shows that rewarding works better as a motivation when the goal is winning not just participating. An intrinsic motivation is when you take part in an activity because you enjoy it. An example would be children engaging in sports because they like it or concentrating in history class because they are fascinated about the Greeks and Romans, will discuss it with you later in the week and share some of their personal findings on the subject with friends who also are fascinated by the Ancient World.

Research shows that humans around the world of all cultures and social conditions are naturally programmed to be proactive and grow but it does not happen automatically. The trigger here is intrinsic motivation based on psychological needs. The need for competence is a strength finder, mastering knowledge and taking on challenges. The need for autonomy is the acknowledgment of feelings, freedom, being responsible for choices one makes. The need for relatedness is having social support by interacting, being cared for and caring for others, sharing and receiving thoughts, feeling accepted.

Just stop reading for a minute and reflect on this. Think of your job and your life in general. Do you mainly do enjoyable activities? Can you achieve your goals most of the time? Do you think you’re given enough freedom to make your own decisions? Do you have all the social support you need from your friends, colleagues and family? It seems maybe obvious to answer “yes” three time. Now think of your child or teenager in his life.

Studies over this last decade have shown that children who did not have these psychological needs went through rough a time experimenting drugs or alcohol on reaching adolescence and became adults who had a hard time making decisions they felt responsible for. Controlling learning environments result in less effective learning, creativity or initiatives. Controlling parents have children who are less intrinsically motivated. Children engaging in an activity they like, but with an adult they don’t know and who does not care, have very low intrinsic motivation. Support, security and environment matter as much as the activity itself. Which means that when one of the three needs is missing, motivation is not at full capacity.

Other studies show that giving assignments to children which are slightly harder than their

skill level generates intrinsic motivation. They work harder at it and generally succeed. If they feel secure in their environment they will engage in more different activities. They will be intrinsically motivated to try new ones with a more playful or adventurous attitude. Showing we care about what children enjoy has an impact on enlarging their scope of interests.

As individuals we can work on our self-determination. As parents we should give children the support they need, let them experience choices and help them find the right challenges. We should try to share and understand with the teaching community our children’s motivations and focus on the intrinsic motivation and positive extrinsic motivation. We can then think how to act as citizens on the general motivation matter.

Actions we are aware of in France for parenting experience on motivated families, can be found on our parent tool kit page here. Concerning the education community, discover here the outcomes of the first workshops on wellbeing in schools and the conclusions of the government’s national consultation on educational reforms. Training courses on wellbeing have started in a few private schools in France. We hope state schools will soon look into it.

If you want to know more about the self-determination theory visit this website www.selfdeterminationtheory.org.

#Motivation