Let's go on, motivation or not!

As I was reminding my middle daughter to wake up, get up, get dressed and have her breakfast this morning, I could not stop thinking that I was living a deja-vu. She is only seven years old and masters many tricks for not taking charge of her duties for as long as she does not have to. Among the steps that I have taken to reason with her, I have noticed that whether I yell, calmly remind her, draw her pictures, post sentences on her bedroom wall with her help, she still finds a way to 'forget'. Is it that she is forgetting? Is she seeking attention? Is it that she is lazy?... I will spare you my list of questions but choose to share with you a comment made by my second half regarding our daughter's present lifestyle choices: let's spare ourselves from some useless parental headaches by seeking to understand what her motivations are. If we can understand her motivation, we may have better chances to get to know her. One thing said is far from being one thing done if you know what I mean.

I have previously looked at motivation as the fuel that brings us to act and complete tasks, but where do daily routines fit within this framework? There are tasks that we need to do that we have the motivation for them or not. Well, if I don't get to brush my teeth in the morning, my breath may stink today, and if I continue on that trend, I may increase the chances of getting cavities and gum disease. Motivated by the instant circumstances to please others or feeling te crush of long-term consequences. Will I brush my teeth seeking to please others? Or I feel like brushing them concerned by my own well-being? Chances are that we may actually go ahead and brush our teeth without even thinking about the why. We may get the habit of doing it (or not doing it). I agree, whether we brush our teeth or not is not an overly important issue but the point is that:
1) we may undertake an activity out of habit
2) we may do something because of ourselves
3) we may do something out of concerns of others

Coming back to my seven years old, apparently she may be picking on habits that are just unacceptable to me. She NEEDS to wake up, get up, get dressed and have her breakfast. At this point, she may complete her routine to please me, less concerned about what is right for her. What if as a teenager, she can still not understand the 'motives' behind our obligation to complete certain tasks? I am sure that I am not the only parent who would want to avoid relying on shooting at someone's wrong doing (do you recall the laptop shooting dad?) and to prevent that, I am focusig my energy to work with my daughter in a way that she gains consciousness about why it is that she needs to be doing certain things. I am here referring to the three points raised earlier. While engaging dialogues, I attempt to see where she is with respect to them. Will we be able to point at what her motivation really is? I do not know for sure, but I will at least know that the task was completed today!

Motivation, writing and social media

Would you agree that it is more engaging to continue to write when you know that there are actually some people who would be out there to read your work? I wonder what is motivating you to continue to read this blog and at the same time, if you maintain your own blog, what is motivating you to continue to write your blog.

For me, I am going to keep this post quite short, but before I say until next time, it is on days like today where I think: 1) how is it that so many thesis and research papers get written throughout the world where only very few get to read these sometimes amazing pieces of work? and 2) how can we possibly motivate students to practice their writing skills where they would actually be able to share their written pieces (if they would choose to do so) with others.

It seems to me that social media has been the motivational tool for many of us, encouraging greater number to read, write; hence go ahead and explore an area which may have been felt reserved to others. From an educational point of view, the quality of the written work differs. While some pieces may be masterpieces others may be less inspirational. What amazes me is that within this pool of information available to us (for as long as we possess the required technology, including the knowledge and the willingness to take part in it), is how fame comes to some while living the others. Some bloggers see themselves more successful than others. How come? Experience, style, philosophy are of course all great assets to the blogger. Beyond that I have not yet conducted any research on this yet, but I believe that the theme chosen is also highly important. Originality is also key as much as accessibility is important.

It is then with less fear that I agree that my two young daughters spend some time familiarizing themselves with technology. I am happy when uder supervision they each sit behind their computer, ready to explore their writing skills on a wordprocessor application, and their research skills on the internet. They even get to post their work for us to see. What a fun way for them to practice their presentation skills even at a young age! How lucky can they be if only as parent I can encourage them to put inpractice their grey cells in that manner rsther than jumping to embrace tevhnology for some useless computer games.

Well, I will keep you posted on how we are doing, but why not take the opportunity to let me know your reaction and experience to these.


Until next time,
Go, go, family go!

Motivation at work

 Around the topic of motivation, the following video posted on youtube illustrates 'what motivates us' particularly at work. 

Within the ten minutes of the presentation, the cartoon approach makes the topic light in content but appealing to the eyes while pointing to a very interesting finding: there is a link between our motivation and the rewards we may get from completing the required task. However, there is a limit for the rewards to have positive influence on us to get us going. If overwhelmed by the feeling of getting too much reward, we may tend to do even worse than if not rewarded at all. Why not be your own judge and watch the clip.  

Too much reward at work? I wonder how does it work out at home? Is it possible to think that we may occasionally give too much rewards to our children to get them motivated to do things?

Well, I may be a little bit pulling too many ideas from different directions, but as I am thinking and writing I cannot stop linking this idea about motivation and rewards to my everyday life as mom. My children need to do things around the house for example, for they need to learn to become responsible, autonomous, collaborative etc. how should they be rewarded? what is the limit? The recent Youtube posting of the laptop shooting dad, followed by a recent response to such posting by a blogger on Blogher and the flow of comments it created on Blogher led me to put this all together. In my opinion, yes, the father went over the border: what kind of example are we setting: you are not happy about something, go ahead and shoot it! Anger management, here I come. On the other hand, yes, complaining is part of us, we need to set limits dear Hannah so that we are not pushed in all directions but to actually go to the extend of publicly revolting against your parents? That is out of border as well. Doing chores around the house is everyone's responsibility. Some parents may choose to pay for the work, some other may believe that it is part of life and no monetary reward should be given. Our opinion is as vary a we are. We all grew up in different parts of the world, with different level of education, different beliefs and traditions, just to name those. So yes, we may not all reach the same conclusion.

I have tackled here various topic, raised many questions while leaving out many answers. On the topic of motivation, rewards and children: I am working on the following with my children. I do not provide monetary rewards in exchange but more chances to be responsible in our everyday family activities, from choosing to plan out our next meal, to the different things we could do throughout the day, to when to watch TV and what program to watch, etc. What has become key is that the more involved they are with such decision making,  the healthier our relationship has become and the more motivated they may seem to get to take on a task and tackle a new one.

I will need to watch and learn. That is true, as some days are better than others for the reasons that I am not always aware.

Thank you.

The various subject for discussion that I opened up earlier, I will come back to them in future blog posts.

Go, go, family go!