"When I am a Mom... I will not make charts that tell them [my kids] all of their chores/responsibilities. My mom does this and it drives me crazy! It seems like every day we come home from school and she has another chart or something annoying like that."
This little gem is an excerpt from an essay I found on my computer that my own sweet child wrote for school. Little cutie. This is just one contributing factor in helping me realize lately that I "ain't got no control."—at least over whether or not my kids are motivated to do something. Sounds hopeless, yes? So a few weeks later on one of my many trips functioning as my kids' cabbie, I caught the teeniest snippet of the Matt Townsend show on KSL. His topic was "How to motivate your kids." The first point of the show was all sorts of encouraging: "You can't!" My disheartened little train of thought felt like it was entering a long, dark tunnel. I sure have tried everything I can think of, and I haven't been so very successful at motivating my kids to do all the things I want them to do.
The show went on, though, and I began to see some light at the end of the tunnel. Why not do a little less of trying to force my kids to be all sorts of gung-ho about the things I want them to do, and allowing them to really work on things they have interest in. All kids HAVE motivation. Unfortunately for all of us, however, I often squelch my kids’ ideas because they will be messy, laborious for me, unfruitful in my eyes, or expensive. People will work extraordinarily hard on things they are interested in. So I resolved to try to get out of the way and let my kids go to work.
Let me share a few of the happenings at our house over the month following my discovery: I allowed my daughter to help figure out where to come up with the money to pay for her dream of taking voice lessons. She is loving it and working hard on improving her skills. My son, who quit piano lessons a couple of years ago because I finally decided it wasn't worth the fight, started asking me to help him with songs on the piano. We have spent hours together without the previous frustration because it is his choice to play, and we are learning songs he likes. Another daughter is enjoying reading more as I let her choose how we read each day- in the dark with a flashlight, in her play tent, at the park, etc. I dropped all time restrictions on when the kids had to have their jobs done each day, and the nagging has almost vanished, with the kids getting their jobs done earlier most days than they ever have before because they simply want to be done and free. And best of all, all 6 kids have started keeping their rooms clean without any reminding! Well, I may have made this last one up- but I'll let you know if I ever figure out any tricks to solve the messy bedroom problem.
A friend recently shared the idea with me that instead of telling your kids "No, we don't have money or time for that thing you want,” be excited about their idea with them and if they are really motivated, help them come up with a plan to make it happen where they put forth the work.
Now don't worry, you won't have to plug your nose when my kids walk by because they haven't been motivated to shower for the last 33 days or so, I do still require certain things of them I see as reasonable expectations, but I am working harder to allow them to pursue the great things they think of. Turns out, they have some pretty cool ideas after all; and amazing things happen when I get out of the way.
