Do you want to know how to motivate your grown child?
I'm Nicholeen Peck, I'm a parenting and
relationships expert and I have raised all of my children as well as many foster children
to adulthood and I'm going to be talking about motivating them to do great things.
Whether your child is living with you still or they've moved off on their own.
There are key things that you can do to motivate your adult child and to
still have a positive influence on their lives. I'm going to be sharing with you my master list
of things that I do to motivate my children to better succeed. Make sure that you have a good
relationship that's number one most important. So, I know that sometimes
when we start seeing our child not succeeding, not being motivated,
we get a little bit frustrated with them and then we start saying things that maybe
we shouldn't say and they start saying things that maybe they shouldn't say.
In fact, sometimes we forget who we are to each other because we are both adults and
we start thinking of each other in a different light. Well, don't forget you're still family,
you still care about each other, you're still their parent or their guardian,
whoever you happen to be. They need you. The prefrontal cortex of their brain is not fully
developed until they are between the ages of 18 and 25 and they're really saying that right now.
It's more like mid-20s when a person's brain finally develops. So, they developmentally
need you that doesn't mean that they need to be leeching off of you, taking advantage of you,
never leaving the house or their room, using your stuff without asking for it. Once they're an adult
the rules change for them and they should. They should see themselves as
taking responsibility for their own lives. But this is all a mindset that is formed
through the relationship. You can't teach them or inspire them if your relationship is broken.
So what you need to do is focus first on establishing good relationships. All the
things that I'm going to be talking about on my master list for you today
require getting the relationship in place. In fact, some of them will
help you get that relationship a little bit more healthy. You need to live by principle
so your children need to see principles not just your preferences. So oftentimes,
when you have other adults living in your house or participating in things
that you're doing like family parties or such. People have preferences, you have preferences,
they have preferences. These preferences can get in the way of establishing a good relationship.
So what we need to do is we need to make sure that we focus on the principles not the preferences.
So what's one of the principles? Well, one truth is that you are family,
you're bonded and connected to each other. You're supposed to be supportive of each other.
This does not mean you enable each other or that you have entitlement to get things from the other
person. This means that you think of the very best for the other person and you help them take steps
to get that very best path in life for themselves. This should mean that they're supportive of you
and that you are supportive of them. So, another principle that you're probably going to want to
focus on is the principle of taking responsibility or what it means to be an adult. Adult means
something when a person is an adult that means that they are taking that full responsibility
for their lives. This doesn't mean they don't ask for help they absolutely can ask for help.
It also does not mean they're perfect. Some people feel afraid for launching into adulthood
because they think they have to be perfect and they're a little overwhelmed maybe even have some
anxiety about having to do things on their own. It just means they're taking responsibility for
their actions that just means taking steps. When a person is an adult they take steps
that doesn't mean they won't fail and don't need to have somebody's help and guidance along the way
it just means they're willing to move. If they are not being an adult and they're waiting for
someone to compel them in all things or to teach them everything and tell them everything they have
to do all the time then they're not behaving as an adult. Which really means they shouldn't get
the perks that come with being an adult either. They've got to own their role and live up to
it. So it's up to you to make sure that they get that opportunity. Another key principle is that
when a person is taking responsibility for themselves when they're taking steps and
being that adult. Sometimes they're gonna fail and that's okay. We have to allow our children to fail
that's important. Sometimes when we do too many things for them then they feel like they can't do
anything on their own. This is coddling we have an absolute problem in our society with the coddling
of the American people starting in the homes. We've got to allow our children to have the
freedom that comes from taking some of life's hard knocks. That's how a person grows, it's how they
learn, it's how they become the person they were meant to be. You've done a lot of training so far.
Now they've got to stand on it and see what other lessons they need to learn. I think many parents
hope that they'll launch their child off into some perfect adult life. Now, that happens sometimes
but it usually requires a certain amount of motivation from the child in order to get to
that level of perfection as an adulthood. Whatever that means, I don't know if any of us are perfect.
But when a person launches they usually kind of bump around a bit it's kind of clunky. They make
mistakes, they didn't talk to a teacher they should have, they forgot to file their taxes.
You know whatever it is, these things happen.
It's part of adulthood and it's part of their learning experiences. So you gotta pull back
and do not micromanage. Do not tell them everything that they are supposed to be doing
and afterward when you talk about something that they might have missed then you say, "Oh,
too bad", but then they learned say, "Well, I guess we learned from this, right?", and then
just move on. Show them that adulthood also means you pick yourself up, you move on, and you don't
worry about it. Before I go on with my master list and some of the other great points that I have to
share with you I would love to know where you're at. So in the comments below, how about you tell
me? Is your child that you're worried about? Are they living with you? Are they not living
with you? What have you been trying or what are some of the things that maybe you're a little bit
concerned about? Let's see if I can help put your experience in the comments below. This is vital,
have meetings with your children regularly even if they don't live with you. Now these meetings don't
have to be formal they can be very very informal. But what I mean is catch up with each other a lot,
talk about things, help them make plans, see how things are going, and say,
"What's your goal for that or what are you going to do about that?". That leads me to
another thing that's super important which is ask good questions. So these meeting times are going
to improve our relationships. Asking questions are going to show that you care and that you
trust them to make their own decisions. Here's the thing, if you start telling them everything
they have to do then all the more they're going to feel like they can't do it. You've got to
make sure that you ask a question and then let the silence sit there till they come up with something
even if they can't come up with something that day. Say, "I'm sure you'll figure it out. I'm sure
you'll come to whatever you need to be doing to handle this problem and just remember if you need
to staff it out with anybody you can always ask me." Let them know you know they've got the skills
they can do it. For a person to make positive change in their life and to become motivated
they need to be surrounded by motivated people. So who is the person who's surrounding your child,
you. So you've got to be motivated. Now maybe this is a no-brainer. Maybe you think well I already am
motivated that's why I noticed there's a problem. But do they see it? So make sure that they see
you getting up at an early hour. Make sure they see you pulling your weight around the house
not complaining just talking about it. Let them see you in action. Now, I know we have a severe
entitlement problem in our society nowadays where children are like great you do it ... But they
know in their hearts that at some moment in their life someone is not going to cover everything. So
make sure they've got their responsibilities if they're living with you. That's part of living
with other people. When you live with other people you talk to them, you hang out with them. I mean
not every second of the day but some and you help out, you cook things, you clean things, you engage
in group work, and group activities together with those people. That is what it means to live with a
group of people. If they do not want to do those things then they need to be living by themselves
not with a group of people. So remember that if they're living with you they need to be engaging
with you. You need to be developing them socially by teaching them that they can't just spend all
their days on their phone or whatever it is that they happen to be doing. Now here's a master tip
if you want to change you've got to have words that come through your brain on a regular basis
that actually motivate you. So I got this from my friend Kelly Wilson she and I do some work
together sometimes and she says, "Nicholeen, I have three words that I say to myself
before I start any parenting interaction and I think it's just a great idea", so she
thinks words like understand, love, connected, stuff like that and those maybe her words they
may not be. I can't remember her three words. But this concept of thinking or picking three
words that you say on a regular basis is powerful. Help your adult child pick three words that they
can use. Maybe you write them in their mirror. They put them on a note by their light switch.
They put them somewhere where they're going to see them regularly and think of them.
These three words are words that motivate them right or maybe they're phrases. Phrases like
do hard things could be one of the phrases. Another phrase could be something like step up,
step out, take action, right something that they can think on a regular basis so that they do
things differently. Help them come up with the words and then tell them where might be a good
idea to place those words so that they've got a strategy for success. If you've enjoyed this video
I'm pretty sure you're gonna love my next video which is gonna be great for you and your adult
child. In fact, it's a class that I'm giving away completely free it's called the expectation trap
versus the cycle for success. It could be that you or your child is stuck in the expectation trap
and if you can break out of it and find the cycle for success. Then I think you and your adult child
will be much more happy. So click on the link to the expectation trap class, I'll see you there.