Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

Michael Farris:
Every family wants that child who's a self-starter, who completes the day's assignment and asks, "Are there any extra chores I can do since I've finished early?" Now that's a rare child! But more of us will find that our children have varying degrees of motivation in wanting to learn. Vickie, can you tell us about the differences in motivation you've observed in our own children and how you've dealt with that

Vickie Farris:
Well, I've done different things to motivate different children, depending on what the problem is. Sometimes I will have to walk a child through an assignment because they just seem overwhelmed with the whole thing; they don't know where to begin, they don't know what to do. Sometimes we have memorized some Scriptures and talked about them just to kind of motivate. And then one year in particular, I remember that I really struggled with one of our children. She just was not getting her work done. I tried various punishments, to no avail, and I finally decided on some kind of a reward system. I basically told her if she did her work well and did it in a timely manner, she would earn a star for that day, and then if she earned five stars she would get some kind of reward that we agreed on—a pack of gum or some money or candy bars, something like that. And really towards the end of that year she was just doing her work well without even needing the reward, and that's kind of something that just got her extra-motivated.

Mike:
Vickie, thanks so much. I'm Mike Farris.