HI Everyone, 

What motivates your child? Can you list the things that really make your child excited and interested? We often need to find ways to motivate a child to try harder on an activity and it isn’t always easy to figure out what is going to work. As I am writing this, my grandchild is sitting behind me in the same desk chair. We are crunched together. She is busy playing with her math, something she was also doing earlier with my other granddaughter. Both girls are finding math fun because they are good at it and it makes sense to them. Success is fun. 

Maybe as part of the reward you need to make an activity work is your own enthusiasm for the task. Did you ever have a sports coach who could really just make you want to do your very best or a teacher you really looked forward to seeing because they were so enthusiastic? That was rewarding. Not always, but in some cases, your attitude and enthusiasm can be the reward. And what are we rewarding? We are rewarding sustained effort. 

Let’s start this week by remembering that our attitude can be very rewarding to our children and that we are rewarding our children for paying attention and trying hard. If we can sustain that, we are going to see good progress.
We are here to help so let us hear from you!

Take care,

Ellen