Motivation in Young Children

Everything a young child does teaches them something. Curiosity comes built in, and they genuinely enjoy poking around, testing things, finding out what happens next. When that poking around leads to a small success or a bit of pleasure, the appetite to keep going grows. The attitudes toward learning that form in these early years tend to stick for a lifetime. Give a child the right kind of encouragement and backing now, and you are likely raising someone who stays creative and willing to take risks as a learner. Withhold that support, and the relationship with learning often sours over time.

Think about why a child does what she does. A lot of it comes from inside. When she picks out which shirt to wear or which toy to grab, she is running on what psychologists call intrinsic motivation. She made the choice herself, and part of the reward is simply having chosen, on top of getting to wear the shirt or play with the toy. Because that drive comes from the activity itself, it keeps itself going for as long as she stays interested.

Other activities happen because an adult said so, or because the child wants to make someone happy. That is extrinsic motivation: the payoff arrives from the outside, and it has to keep arriving or the child loses interest. Leaning on an outside force makes this kind of activity much harder to sustain. Children also take in more from the intrinsically motivated stuff, since it feels more worthwhile to them. A child wrapped up in something she chose is more engaged in her own learning, so what she picks up tends to stay with her. Plain unstructured play, with no agenda imposed on it, matters a great deal for all of this.

Certain behaviors signal that motivation is running high. A few of them are worth watching for, along with ways you can help your child build them.

Persistence is the first. It means sticking with a task over a stretch of time. No young child can lock onto one activity for a full hour, but you can still measure real differences in how long different kids will stay with something. A highly motivated child keeps at it; a child who lacks that drive tends to quit fast the moment success doesn't come instantly. Persistence gets built when a child pushes through a hard task and actually finishes it.

Then there is the choice of challenge. A child who clears one hurdle and tastes success usually welcomes the next one, because the win fed her motivation. Motivated kids will often reach for something a notch harder, difficult but still within range. Finishing that harder thing gives them an even bigger payoff. The unmotivated child does the opposite, picking whatever is easiest so success is guaranteed, and then feeling almost nothing from it because she knew all along it asked little of her.

Dependency on adults tells you a lot too. A child with strong internal drive doesn't need someone hovering, helping, and watching every move. The child running low on motivation leans on extrinsic rewards, demands constant attention, and struggles to do anything on her own. Being able to function independently matters for real learning, and heavy reliance on adults will undercut a child's chances at school later. One way to build independent drive is to hand kids toys and activities that feed their own curiosity. The plainest things often work best: toy cars, crayons and paper, blocks, little plastic figures. These let a child invent whole imaginary worlds instead of waiting for a grown-up to keep her entertained.

Emotion rounds it out. A motivated child shows it on her face, more enjoyment, more satisfaction in whatever she is doing. A child who isn't motivated often comes across as sullen, bored, quiet, taking no visible pleasure in her activities and complaining instead. You are probably the best read on your own child's mood. A whiny, cranky voice is usually a tip that she isn't feeling great about herself and could use a fresh adventure.

Where does all this start? Newborns arrive with a surprising amount of intrinsic motivation, most of it aimed at having a visible effect on the world around them. An infant keeps doing something when she can see the result, and that result is its own reward. Early on her tools are limited to crying, facial expressions, little sounds, and small movements, which is exactly why toys that make noise or change when the baby bats at them pull so hard.

Between nine and twenty-four months, movements become more deliberate and voluntary, and that hands a child far more control over her surroundings. The wider her range of control, the more she feels she is succeeding. Those successes feed a sense of worth and higher self-esteem, which in turn strengthens motivation. Around this time she also starts setting her own small goals and working out what to do to get what she wants.

By age two, a child is building the ability to carry out a sequence of actions to reach a goal, and she begins to grasp standards and size up her own efforts against them. At three, it is no longer enough to just do the activity; now she wants to do it well, and she needs less reassurance from adults about the quality of her work. Somewhere between three and five, preschoolers get drawn into solving problems out loud, using speech to steer their own behavior and guide their own learning.

Parents have plenty of ways to keep that internal drive alive. Set up the environment so your child can roam and watch what her own actions do. Give her enough time on a task that persistence has room to show up. Respond to her needs in a steady, predictable way while letting her be as independent as she can manage. Make lots of chances to explore and interact together. And go easy on rewards, because overusing them tends to chip away at a child's ability to value herself. (Erin)