Do you want to know ow to motivate a child who gives up easily? I'm Nicholeen Peck. I
teach about relationships, I'm the founder of teaching self-government, which is a parenting
program and in this video, that is what we are talking about.
In this video, I'm gonna be sharing with you 4 key things
that you can do to help your child that gives up easily
feel like they can get going again. If you want to make sure your child can rally after
disappointments and that they can motivate themselves when they have a tendency to give
up, then it's really good to be pro-active, so start ahead of time by preparing your child
to accept failure. So, there is a skill that I teach in my Teaching Self-Government course.
This skill is called accepting "no" answers. So, when a person accepts a "no" answer, they
look at the person or the situation, they keep a calm face, voice and body, they say,
"Okay," or ask to disagree appropriately and then they drop the subject. So, disappointing
things happen all the time. Sometimes we didn't win the race, we didn't get a good grade like
we wanted to, we didn't get things our way, we tried something and we failed. These are
all examples of "no" answers. So, when a person experiences something like this, they need
to look at the situation, keep a calm face, voice and body, say, "Okay. That happened,"
or disagree appropriately with someone about it if they needed to, that's a whole other
skill for another day, and then they need to drop the subject. So, not carry it with
them. So, a wise parent teaches their child ahead of time the skills that they need for
success in the minute. So, if you've noticed your child has a tendency to get disappointed
and they give up easily, they probably need some skill development. Another pro-active
thing that you really want to do is be sure to have meetings with your child. So, prepare
ahead of time with the child by having a special planning meeting. Talk about the situation
that happens, how sometimes things occur that don't go their way and maybe they tried to
do something but it didn't go perfectly at first and that this is called disappointment
and that we can handle this disappointment by using this awesome skill called accepting
a "no" answer, and then after that, talk about how you're going to be correcting problems
or fixing things in the minute if they don't go right, if a person isn't able to remember
their skill, how you're gonna remind them of the skill in the minute. Also you're probably
gonna want to set up some sort of a positive motivation system. So, when they do things
well, when they decide to drop the subject to keep a calm face, voice and body about
it, to disagree appropriately instead of get emotional and talk back, that they will actually
be rewarded in some way. So, when a person learn self-government which is the thing I'm
known for teaching, they have to master cause and effect. So, the effect of a good choice
should be something positive. So, for a little while, you could create some sort of synthetic
positive consequence. Maybe it's a chart system like a little sticker or maybe it's a really
natural positive consequence like some praise and a high five or something like that so
that they know that they've done well. But tell them ahead of time, "This will be your
positive consequence when you do choose to accept a "no" answer next time something feels
like it might be disappointing." Then remind them to come and tell you when they have utilized
that skill so that you can be sure to give them the praise that they're looking for so
that they can see that cause and effect in action. This will help them have a change
of behavior and a change of heart. And if you have regular meetings, you can continually
check up with them and see how they're doing on mastering their day to day disappointments.
After you've done this fantastic preparation, then you can be on the watch for those experiences
that you think in the past might have been a problem for your child and you can prepare
them for success. So, I have 5 different teaching styles that I teach to parents. One of those
teaching styles is called pre-teaching. There's 3 different ways that we use pre-teaching.
There's instructural pre-teaching, situational pre-teaching and then there's prepping. So,
if you've taught a skill for how to accept a "no" answer, you're gonna want to use the
prep type of pre-teaching right before you think a "no" answer is going to occur. So,
maybe they're going to be in a race or they're working on a special project for school and
hoping to get a good grade, then you know, "Oh wait. Their hopes are attached to something.
They might have emotionally invested in this and I've got to prepare them for success."
So, right at that time, right before the race, right before they turn in the paper, tell
them, "Hey, you have done your best you can to prepare for this so go out there, do your
best or turn that paper in and know that you've done the most amazing job that you can. And
when you get your results back, if it's not what you like, remember to just accept a "no"
answer because I'm not gonna care if you don't get a perfect grade of if you are not first
at the end of the race. I am only gonna care that you did your very best." See, sometimes
they think we are expecting things out of them that are unrealistic such as winning
all the time, being the very best student, better than everybody else. Parents sometimes
unknowingly put a lot of pressure on their children and this can be really detrimental
for their anxiety, which really when a person has a hard time with failure, they give up
easily, that's actually a sign of a higher level of anxiety. So, prep them ahead of time
and then they'll succeed in the minute. I'm not giving up yet. I've got a lot more come
on this video, but before I get to my next points, subscribe to this channel. You're
not gonna want to miss any of the videos that come out on this channel everyday. People
choose to give up on a regular basis because they've developed a habit. It's a processing
habit so, as soon as they feel something, overwhelmed, maybe fearful, anxiety, concerned,
then they immediately think, "I don't know if I can do it. I can't do it. I failed last
time. I'm not sure." And then that's when the emotion kicks in, it starts to fuel them
and then that controls all their behavior and they don't take the action. So, it's really
important for you to understand what's happening inside their heads and with their chemicals
in their body but it's also important for them to understand what's going on within
themselves. Do they know that they can think before their emotions start happening? They
can. There is a split second where they can tell themselves, "I can do this. I know it
feels scary but I can do this. I can do hard things," or whatever phrase maybe you teach
them that they need to tell themselves. It's important. These are empowering things that
you teach your child so that they recognize that that failure's okay and success is awesome
too and that they don't get either one of those things unless they keep trying. It's
vital that we don't baby our children and coddle our children when things don't go their
way. Don't emote too much in front of the child when they are experiencing a disappointment.
It's important that we show that we care but that also we can be strong. So, we want to
fill in their brain with things like, "This happens to everybody. It's okay, this is part
of growing up. We're gonna learn from this. What can we learn from this?" Give them empowering
words that they can use instead of reverting back to that habit of emotion and overwhelm
like they usually do. I know that some children just have a tendency to get more overwhelmed
than others. There are things that we can do to motivate our children so that they don't
give up so easily. If you've enjoyed this video, I know you're gonna enjoy my next video
because my next video is a full class that I've created just for you. This class is called
"The Expectation Trap vs. The Cycle for Success." This is gonna help you and your child learn
key things that you can think and do so that you don't fall into the traps of giving up
ever again. Click on that link now and we'll see you there.