Motivation!

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mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Motivation!

Post by mystery »

Oh, such a very difficult question, and quite hard to answer without knowing your son. Yes bribery is a dangerous route, but you might find that once the habit is set your son will do it without bribery and starts to enjoy it, and want to do it, or you can be clever about your bribery so that it is rewarding self-starting etc - an ever more subtle system of bribery might be called for, which calls for constant adjustment of what the reward is and what it is for.

Another one you could try is a timer - put the agreed time on it and always end when it rings. Every time your child wastes time, add another minute, without getting cross, or saying anything.

Use a variety of different tasks - as a teacher would at school. If your son does not particularly like sittting there ploughing through written questions on his own, do it differently. Obviously you need to do some of this as preparation for the exam, but it is not the best teaching style if what you are trying to do is get through some new material with him.

If he walks off, downright refuses, well .......... this is up to you. Maybe ask him if he'd like to come to a big bookshop with you and choose things with you that would be useful to work through, and have a nice lunch out together at the same time. Or just calmly say, that's fine, you really don't mind, it's up to him whether or not he would like you to help him pass to get to grammar school, but that if he wants you to help another day he will have to ask you nicely as you have other things you would prefer to do.
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