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The giving season can be very difficult for parents to older children. We have want to make sure that what we give to our children does not come back to hurt us or them in the months after they have opened their presents. How can we motivate our children in school or at home once they have received their prized Christmas presents as gifts this month?
I have an 8 & 12 year old. My children are pretty good kids. The both make good grades & well-behaved and have a natural drive to do well in school. I tell them every morning 2 things (aside from I love you): 1. Be Nice & 2. Work Hard. If they can do those 2 things throughout each and every day, then I did my job, right? But my children are far from perfect. Occasionally my son can get overwhelmed & overly excited. Having this experienced can get him in trouble. I always say he is like a puppy dog, ready to tackle the day and wakes up thinking “Oh Boy , Oh Boy”. I don’t want him to lose his spirit and sunshine in his heart so I am working with him to practice self control. Basically to “chill out”. Our only battle with my 12 year old is her bedroom. It looks like a swat team had to enter the room and turn it inside out. So naturally items in her room can get lost, have slight damage, or even worse break completely.
The last thing I want is to purchase my children’s “must have” Christmas item, only to take it away from them due to a punishment. I recently read an article by a Child & Adolescent Psychologist. His theory was to implement a daily ‘rental program” of sorts. Instead of giving the gift only to take it away if your child comes home with bad grades or exhibits a pattern of poor behavior etc, they suggest to allow your child to in a way, “check out” the item when good behavior has been established. When homework is not completed, rooms are not as they should be, or behavior is not acceptable, then the “must have toy” is not given to the child. This highly effective motivational technique allows the child to have self-control and to think forward. The child has a personal reason for doing well each & everyday.
My daughter has a brand new Kindle Fire that she received for her birthday in lieu of having a “big” birthday party. I opted to have her “check out” the kindle at her leisure if her room clean & well-maintained. After a few weeks, I noticed since she didn’t have the Kindle in her room permanently, she was more inclined to follow the CLEAN YOUR ROOM Option in order to have more “Kindle Time”.
I’m not sure if it was the new rental program we implemented or the fact she was tired of not being able to find items in her disgusting disheveled room. Either way, the thought process from Online Child Behavior Clinic suggests: “A Mega-Toy is a product that is so attractive, so painfully desired, that a child is willing to work harder in school just to have extra time to play with the magical toy each day. A Mega-Toy is so powerful that parents can rent the toy to the child daily in units of minutes or hours in exchange for evidence of improved performance at school. This makes the toy a powerful motivational tool.”
![christmas toys child behavior](<a href="http://www.onlinechildbehaviorclinic.com/"><img src="http://bloggingbabiesandthebayou.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/picture-_christmas_toy_sleigh-_chritmas_objects_and_element_1600x1200.jpg?w=1024" alt="child behavior holidays" width="1024" height="768" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-6064" /></a>)
I think there is a fine line between motivating & “bribing” your child to do well in school or with their behavior, but if an object (no different than money for adults) can become a motivational tool for your child it is worth implementing any kind of motivational program for your child. Don’t completely take away items from your child or do the complete opposite, an give in to your child’s temper poor behavior or laziness, make every item we have a motivational value to them. They will soon show appreciation and respect for the mega toy & for their parents/teachers rules and motivate themselves to do better and move forward.
You can find valuable parenting tips and techniques for your children by visiting the Online Child Behavior Clinic. You can find monthly newsletters that offer child behavior & mental health tips on various topics from education, adolescent behavior, recent behavior change & more. Monthly newsletters can be delivered straight to your inbox or you can schedule a therapy session at the convenience of your own home or office via Skype.
Visit: www.onlinechildbehaviorclinic.com for more information
What type of motivational technique do you use with your children?
Disclosure: As always all opinions are my own & can not be influenced in any way.
This is a great point, and a method we use often. I do have to make it more standard though.
Interesting read! I have practiced this sort of “reward” system with my eight year old daughter.
Great tips! My son is still a little young for the reward system but there are some great tips here for me to keep in mind as he gets older.
That’s a pretty cool idea – I love the rental idea – would work for my daughter’s DS!
Thank you for sharing, I think the rental tip will work great for my son’s DS and for my daughters Laptop.
I really like the checking out idea of their prized gifts. I bet that really helps!
thank you for posting this, I have to always remember to keep this in perspective!
I am not quite sure that I agree with this method–but if it works (it never would have worked with me!!) I just hope that in the distant future your kids are not motivated by bribes from their employers!
That’s a method we’re trying to use. My son gets distracted so easy if we leave toys out.
Interesting. My parents never did the ‘take it away if you’re bad’ or the ‘rental program’. Gifts that were given to us were ours. Cleaning, doing homework and doing well in school had nothing to do with receiving gifts, which we got all year round, along with allowance. It’s a bit hard to explain but doing these things was never something we negotiated over or bartered over. It was just something that was expected from us regardless whether we got stuff or not, it had to done.
thanks for sharing bella
I use this method and it is very effective for me.
I was just thinking about this today because I do have to use “incentives” to motivate my 13 year old to do certain things. I was wondering if it was bribing or earning privileges.
Marissa
I think it depends on how you perceive it. As children, we did not have the same ‘distractions’ as our children have now so parenting varies in sone ways f/ generation to generation. I think if we remove the ‘distractions’ temporarily or w/ limitations then our children will realize that what they need to work on. In turn, those distractions will not longer distract our children from moving forward in a positive way.
If your constantly removing the distraction or limiting the ‘prized item’ then that the child isn’t learning the lesson & a different course may be needed. It’s no different than having a coworker distract you from performing your work duties. Eventually when you realize that they are distracting you from your responsibilities, you remind yourself to focus on the task & move forward to perform well.
Perfect example: Facebook or Twitter for adults. We need to minimize our time during a 9-5 job or our work doesn’t get done. We KNOW getting in Social media will distract us f/ our job, but we still log on. If our work doesn’t get done then we need to ration our time. We know this as adults & limiting our children if needed, will result in positive “self control” as they get accustomed to the routine.
great tips!
i really like the “rent” idea 
i think i will keep that in mind for when we have our own kids.
I can’t imagine how hard is when you have little kids to decide what’s best for them! Great advice
I’m sharing this w/my trio- love the concept! BB2U