Besides the end-of-year performance showcase, our Pre-Primary students have the opportunity to participate in the HSK-YST examination. Trinity Kids’ nurturing environment provides a safe space for our children to take their first formal examination.
Regardless the destination of their primary school, the taste of success boosts their confidence for further academic pursuits. For many, it also plants the initial seeds of passion in Mandarin and learning languages.
When the child gets a little older in primary or even secondary, parents often ask me how to motivate their child, or rather ignite motivation in their child. After years of gentle encouragement and cheerleading, some may wonder why their child has not developed motivation with age.
The fact is motivation is not a trait which turns on alongside puberty. Motivation has to be cultivated - the soil has to be raked, the seed has to be planted, watered and weeded before it blooms one day.
Motivation starts with nurturing our child’s inner voice from young and motivation grows when we provide our child with suitable challenges.
1. Challenge your child.
So you may be very familiar with KPI at work. Key Performers Indicators are performance related goals to guide your effort. Likewise, our child thrives with suitable challenges - goals just big enough to stretch them.
As Albert Einstein aptly described it, there’s nothing like passionate curiosity which propels and pushes our child forward. Before setting a goal, first identify in which area to set a goal and gear towards an achievement.
We fly towards goals in areas of interest. We drag our feet when it’s an area which disinterests us.
Setting suitable size goals can encourage our child’s interest to deepen. But if he is showing continued reluctance towards the task, then it may be time to revisit the area of interest before setting the next goal.
2. Give your child… … space.
The next key ingredient for motivation to take root in our child is….space.
After a goal is established, our child should be given the independence to determine her direction and approach. In other words, our child is given autonomy.
This allows our child to build ideas, utilise her mind and creativity to problem solve, re-pivot if need be. Problem solving, resourcefulness, resilience are excellent subset traits of motivation. These qualities can’t grow when we as parents helicopter over our child.
3. Don’t reward too early nor generously.
While you are setting a goal with your child, you may be tempted to promise him a toy at Hamleys if he were to pass his next swimming exam. If you were to do so, would your child be swimming well because he wants to swim well or because he wants the new toy?
Rewards confuse intention. It blurs why we do what we do.
Do not dangle a reward as a carrot to entice a child to complete a challenge. Instead tell our child he wants to swim well because he can swim well. When he does indeed come up tops, the joy of win is pure and the best feeling ever. That’s his prize he will constantly seek as a reward.
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‘The future belongs to those who believes in the beauty of their dreams.’ - Eleanor Roosevelt.
Don’t tell our child she’s daydreaming about building sandcastles in the air.
Ignite her motivation today and she will construct the stairs to build sandcastle in the air.
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