Motivate your child to do their work- even when it doesn't count for a grade!

One of the biggest obstacles parents and teachers are facing right now is how to motivate their child or children when the work does not count for a grade. Many students are thinking, "What's the point? I could play video games or I could sit and do math that doesn't count anyway."

The secret to tackling this obstacle lies partially in your mindset. Thinking that your child is lazy or does not care about his or her education will not lead you down a path to solving this problem. Instead, think of it this way: my child feels purposeless. For many school-age children, a defining feature in their lives is school- going to school, doing homework, participating on school teams, etc. Now, school exists only virtually and it has become more conceptual than physical. We have to build in some level of purpose.

Here's how we do that.

Talk with your child about activities or objects that he or she would like to work for. Once you have ideas of incentives, utilize a menu (like the one linked down below) in which your child can earn incentives by earning points for minutes of work completed. In order to edit the reward menu below, download the document as a Word Document so that you can edit the "Reward" column as you see fit. Print it out and post it somewhere to remind your student what he or she is working for! Change the rewards every week or two weeks so that your child does not lose motivation due to becoming bored with reusing the same reward options. Include your child in choosing the rewards to work for every time so that he or she feels a certain level of buy-in to the activity.

Click the link below to start building in purpose!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kh-KJbzpHxSqKFqGpkS3dvHRkpWQjvdN9t_sHwyXAM4/edit?usp=sharing