How to Motivate Your Kids

Do you ever struggle with getting your kids motivated to practice? Whether it is reading, writing, math or sports, it can sometimes be a struggle to help motivate our kids. Parents all hope that their kids will be the best at everything that they do. While things come easy for some kids, others have to work twice as hard. When kids develop a skill naturally, they tend to enjoy it more. But how do we get our kids to practice those skills they are either lacking or need to improve on?

For our son, we developed a points reward system that has helped encourage him to practice skills daily to earn points towards a reward that he will earn. Let’s face it, most if not all kids are looking for instant gratification. The points reward system helps them learn the value of each item they want… ahem, and how expensive these items can be. Instead of giving him an allowance, we are working towards him learning self-discipline and motivation. This can help put our kids on the path to accomplishing great things in the future and developing the skills they will use later in life.

By using the points reward system, kids are able to earn points towards a gaming system, cell phone, shoes/clothing or any other items that they are interested in. Just determine the number of points they need to reach their reward. Then these items will become their incentive to practice while earning points. Once they have reached their points goal, they will receive their reward.

My son has been playing baseball for 3 years. He has great potential and last year was even given the opportunity to pitch for his team. To better help motivate him to continue to work hard, we decided to set a goal for him to achieve through this system. One thing that he has been asking about is “when can I get a cell phone?” Once reaching his goal, he receives a cell phone.

Learn our method of how we motivated our son to strive for greatness with the point rewards system!

Breaking down the points

Batting practice:

Swing only- 1 point

Swing and a hit- 2 points

Throwing practice:

Short throw (1^st to 2^nd base)- 1 point

Long throw (1^st to 3^rd base)- 2 points

School work:

Reading, Writing, Math hw- (Minutes = Points)

We kept track of the points total on a white board in our son’s room.

It took about 4 months for him to hit all of his goals. He learned to motivate himself to work hard and in the end it all paid off when he had his cell phone in his hands!! Give this a try with your kids.