Self motivation comes easy when we are faced with things that we love.  We don't have to motivate a toddler to eat chocolate cake, or a homeschool mom to read a book.  Most of us naturally gravitate toward what we enjoy doing.  

Self motivation, however, becomes more like self control when we are faced with things that we don't want to do.  Most of us don't look forward to vacuuming the house or cooking dinner, but we do it anyway.  Somewhere along the way, we learned how to motivate ourself to do unpleasant and hard things.  How did we do that?  

How do we do that with our children? How do we help them develop the skills and drive to self motivation and independence?  

Five Steps to Help your Child be more Independent 

1. Plan : No one likes to be handed a list of things to do that they had no say in.  In all honesty, if my husband handed me the menu plan for the next week I'd laugh and move on.  This is human nature and it's also a sign of being an adult. If I am part of the planning process, then suddenly I am responsible for the success or failure of the plan.  Include your student in the planning fo his or her education.  We do this in my home by walking through Scio's student roadmap, which is available in the toolbox to all Scio members. 
2. Organize : Now that we've got a plan, we need to have clarity.  How do we setup a daily or weekly task list to know what the expectations are.  This list will clarify for your student what the measurement is between success and failure.  It's rather simple.  If the plan from step 1 had you taking latin 1 this year and latin has 35 lessons, then the organizing of said plan has you doing 1 lesson per week.  Did you complete a lesson this week? yes? Success! No? Failure. Done. 
3. Reward : Here's the fun part.  What do you do if you succeed at something really hard? Most of us reward ourselves for crawling out of bed with a cup of coffee.  When my children were toddlers, I'd reward myself for a good morning with some chocolate during nap time.  What is our student rewarded with for a job well done?  I know, learning is its own reward.  But your 12 year old doesn't necessarily believe that yet.  Rewards can be simple.  Free time to play is often a reward in my house, the quicker you complete your work, the more free time you receive.  You can also model rewards yourself by showing your children the power of delayed gratification.  You might say to your son, 'after we finish this math, let's reward ourselves for a job well done with popcorn to eat while we do our reading'.
4. Consequence : The sad reality for most kids is that if there's a reward, then there's a consequence.  The work force and world all operate this way too, so let's get used to it now.  Remember the latin from before? Did you cringe when I used the word 'failure'? You should.  But the beauty of it is that we don't end there.  A failure is not an end, and we need to teach our children that too.  We don't simply mark this week off as a failure and move on.  We take the consequence for the failure, learn how to prevent this failure in the future, and end the week as a success.  Consequences like rewards can be simple.  You didn't clean the bathroom fully? Do it again.  You didn't complete that latin? You are using your free time to complete it now, because failure isn't really an option here.  The key with consequences is to make sure they are clear BEFORE the task is organized.  That is, in the planning stage, you and your student need to agree on rewards and consequences for the goals. This clarity is more important than you may realize. 
5. Accountability : Finally, we get to the glue that holds it all together.  Inspect what you expect.  Together, decide who your student will report his work to and when.  My boys have to present their week's work to me and my husband every Sunday afternoon.  This is clear to them and it's clear to us.  We ask them about their work and help them get their organization for the next week setup for another week of success! 

Do you see the use of some great tools here?  The student roadmap, student planner, high school course plan, and other tools are available in our Educator's Toolbox.  

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