I've been thinking a lot about motivations, especially as I struggle with finding a means to motivate my own children that are now being homeschooled. I started to notice the pros and cons of homeschooling.
Pros:
We can honestly do so much more in the amount of time we have together. We can go over three subjects with one on one attention, finish piano practice, and have a lot of leisurely reading time. We also explore a lot of other fun subjects like technology where we're doing a coding subscription kit and learning about 3D printing and printing stuff together (or planning on it).
Cons:
Within 2 days of homeschooling my kindergartener, I called the school and registered her. Even though I'm unsure how long in person school will last with the pandemic, I needed her to learn the social aspects of a school education where they have to take turns, not throw massive tantrums everytime she wanted something because 1. I'm her mom and 2. I'm her mom.
The same hardships exist with just my boys. Whenever they decide to be disruptive or that they don't want to do the assigned work, they throw a tantrum, enormous astronomical sized ones that I know they would never ever dare to throw at school. I know there are children that would also throw a tantrum at school, but mine haven't. In fact, Bubba is the most well behaved kid at school, he actually separates himself from his friends if they are causing trouble because being well behaved at school is that important to him. I am trying to think of what it is that makes him try so hard - the pride, the knowledge that he's the best? And so my mind dwells on what motivates me. Why do I work so hard to organize and clean? Before I started posting my decluttering journey, why did I keep my home clean. Pre social media, why was I obsessed with it? It made me feel good. I like showing my mom that I could keep my room clean, but I also liked how it made me feel. Good.
Does completing their work make my kids feel good? Perhaps until they've learned a sufficient amount, there's nothing to be proud of? Or will test taking and receiving good results make them want to try harder? Will the objective of learning itself ever make them feel good? As I sit and force my child to practice another song on the piano yet again, is there something for him to be pleased with?
I finally decided my kids do need motivation. Some type of positive and negative reinforcement, because without it, they are just ticking tantrum bombs. If it's not the oldest, it's the second. I quickly put up "very good" and "not good" in Chinese on my board and started telling them that good behavior earned a show. I hate using screen time as a hook for them, but with our strict screen rules, it really works. So for now, why not. Perhaps faking it til we make it will mean they eventually are so honed in on routine, they don't even question why they study hard and work hard, because it just comes naturally, or perhaps, it backfires and my kids will not do anything once they get a phone and don't need to do anything to get it. Who knows. Time will tell.
