So, finding a way to authentically motivate kids becomes paramount. However, “Motivation is complicated and has many influences,” Aliza Pressman, Ph.D., co-founding director and director of clinical programming for the Mount Sinai Parenting Center tells us. And it turns out that there are technically two types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. “When you do not care if the child internalizes the motivation for doing something, for example, you just really want them to go to bed and stay in bed because you are so tired! You can set up a rewards system if you are OK that they aren’t going to care about actually doing something,” says Pressman. “Also if there is no concern that in the long run, they will be stuck needing extrinsic rewards in order to do something.” Not only that, but if you continually offer external rewards for positive behavior, you may be sending the wrong signal to your kids as they grow up: that good behavior always gets you an award—and that’s simply not the way life works. This is why experts encourage you to help build intrinsic motivation when you can. “Motivation comes from a set of neurochemical networks that develop over time, as a result of the experiences we have,” says Pressman, noting that you can develop motivation through these experiences. “The best way to sustain motivation is to support internal drivers with the right kind of external feedback: not a lot of it, focused on process, and remember that if a child is fully internally motivated, don’t interrupt it much with your external commentary or they might lose sight of their internal drive.”
