How To Motivate Your Children With Their School Work
Motivating your children do their school work in these times isn’t easy. There are the tantrums, the refusals to do the work alone and the general complaining about everything from pencils to being dragged away from devices. If you need a helping hand, here’s some motivation tactics.
Give kids a choice
Kids react better to work when you allow them a choice of when they will do it. The key here is a choice within a choice, rather than an open-ended one. For instance, "You can do X work at 10 am, or 11 am?" Back this up with the idea of some activity after it's been done to motivate them.
Minimise the distractions
Working with YouTube on, or a device nearby will always be a temptation even with the most motivated of students. Try to work in a room that's quiet and allows them to think clearly without seeing a toy to distract them or a fridge to tempt them to ask for a snack.
Prepare in advance
One sure way to keep children motivated is to call them to do their schoolwork once you have:
Read the lessons through and know what they need to do
Collected all the pens, paper and books they need to work with
Printed out everything for them
Have a glass of water nearby for the inevitable drink they will suddenly need
As any parent knows, any amount of waiting or anything that's not at arms length will be a massive distraction technique.
Make learning fun
Remember you aren't in a school environment, so you don't have to replicate everything or try to be the teacher. If schoolwork is turning your kids off, use YouTube and Netflix to expand knowledge areas in subjects like Science and maths. With younger children think of other ways to make subjects and topics exciting such as Lego fractions. Watch a film of a book they are reading or even get younger kids to draw what they think happens next in their favourite books. All these things will expand their knowledge base and make learning more fun for both of you.
Seek extra help
It takes time and determination to get used to working alone, and not everyone can do it. If your child is struggling to do the work and need an extra push, we run small online group tuition with trained teachers. Working with peers can help eradicate much of the complaining and reignite their motivation.
Contact teachers if you need help
If the work being set doesn't make sense to you, or your child is struggling, you can contact the school and teachers. Schools are working remotely and aren't closed. Contact them during term time for an email or phone call.
Allow for things to go wrong
Even with the right motivation and planning, sometimes things won't go to plan. There will be times of nagging and yelling and times when your kids won't want to do it. When this happens, alleviate the stress by backing off, and talking when things are calmer. Empathy and listening also help here, as many children, no matter what their age are finding remote learning and lockdown a hard process.