You've asked the questions, we're here with some answers. Some of you have asked,
"How do you help kids be intrinsically motivated?"
Alright back to school today,
parents. We're going full-on school mode here with you because it's important to
understand child psychology. Incidentally, I share this same model with kids and
teenagers but I call it parent psychology. That's just your little gee
whiz collection. What we're looking at here is control against maturity. Control
meaning control over your own life. And it goes from 0 down here at the
bottom to 100% up here at the top. So, you can have all the
controller none of the controller somewhere in between. Down here on this
axis, we have maturity. Now, maturity is a little more complicated. -It is. A lot of
times people think maturity is directly related to age but it's not always.
-It has something to do with age but not everything. Let's start with that because
it helps us to understand our model. If you start here at birth, that's this
little word that I wrote here. How much control do you have it over your own
life at birth? -Very little, right? -Very little. Some people say none. Well, you can
make a big noise and a big stink. But that's about it. So, I'm going to put a
dot way down here in this corner of the diagram. Now, as an adult I'm going to
write that small over here too. As an adult, how much control do you have over
your own life? -Usually quite a bit. -You know what? When they ask teenagers? -They
think their parents have 100% control of their own life, right?
-You know the small print. But we'll just kind of go with what they say. And we'll
put this dot way up here. Okay? So, the model is basically starting low and
going too high. As you become more and more mature, you get to have... -More and
more control. -That's the model. Now, when we introduced maturity, Vick,
we said that it it has something to do with age but not everything. Because we
all know older people who are not very mature. You know some of these? And we
know younger people who are pretty precocious. -Right. -So, we're going to take
age at of the equation. That's why I wrote it small words. We're just going to take it
out of the equation. And instead of age, we're talking... -Stage. -Yeah. -And we've
divided it into 3. So, let's look at each of these 3 stages real quick.
Now, we thought for a long time about what to name them. Do you remember the
names for these, VIcki? -Stage 1. -Stage 2 and stage 3. You should be
able to remember those. Most people can. -Yeah. Now, stage 1. -If you can see that,
it's characterized by not a lot of maturity on your part and not a lot of
control. -Right. So, this part under the line here, this space under the line is
the control we're talking about children right now. So, it's it's self-control. So, this is
the part of the control your child has. -So, you like your child does have some
and as they get more and more mature. You think about a 2-year-old that can
put on their own coat and choose their shoes. Right? You know? The same cowboy
shoes that they've worn every day, right? So, you've got a little bit more control
over what's happening. -The part over the line is the part of the control the
parents get to take or have to take. Really. Because somebody has to be in
control. And if the child is not mature enough to control their own life,
somebody has to step in and take up the rest of the control in their life. That's
where you come in as parent. So, there's always a shared control who takes the
control is the question. -Right. -So, at stage 1, let's just describe that for a
minute. Vicki, what's characteristic of stage 1?
-Stage one is usually "I want things my way. If I'm happy, it's all good. If I'm
not happy, everything is bad." It's very
self-centered. -Self-centered. Egocentric. -Yeah. -It's demanding, it's manipulative.
Stage 1 is where we get fighting and yelling and screaming and tantrums. Does
any of this sound familiar to you? Stage 1. Now, notice that this is not
about age. We expect a 2-year-old to be in stage 1. They're really good at
tantrums. But notice that a 15-year old could be in stage 1.
And if they are, we say that they are immature, right? Now, when we move to stage
2. We stop fighting and start cooperating. -Yeah. That's our favorite
word. Cooperation. -That's the big one. And that has a lot to do with how we're
going to respond as a parent. Stage 2 is also about keeping the peace and
negotiating and there's some respect there for people who have authority or
status over them. So, if kids move to stage 2, they get to have more control
over their life. Parents you get to back off a little bit at stage 2. Now, stage
3 gets really fun. -That's the great part because look at this. Look at all
the control that you that your child now is ready and willing and able to take.
And you get to kind of sit back and enjoy.
-That's because stage 3 is the most mature of these 3 stages. And it's
based in values and morals and ethics. This is where kids basically do the
right things for the right reasons. -I like to look at these lines right here.
This one... This line is cooperation. -If you're getting cooperation, you're
kind of going over in stage 2. This is what determines it. And this line
is more of initiative. You're willing to take initiative. -Where you see what needs
to be done and you do it. Now, what does this have to do with intrinsic
motivation? When kids are in stage 1, their motivation is external. See, this is
the external part. This is the internal part. So, when we're talking about
intrinsic motivation or internalized
motivation, you get more of that as you move through these stages. So, to help
kids move from external motivation to internal motivation, we want to move them
along through these 3 stages. -One of the tricky things about what you just
said about the child will have more internal motivation as they go across.
You said, we kind of help them move across. It's tricky because if you are
wanting your child to be in stage 2 and they're responding in stage 1 and you
get frustrated about it, then suddenly your child is responding to
your frustration, your response, your mood. Okay? Remember, over here we got to use
some consequences. You know, your your child hit somebody, you got to use a
physical consequence of maybe being moved out of the way, whatever. You know,
they've got to come up with. Usually their physical consequences. And so, if
you're just yelling say, "Why would you do that? How can you..." You know, have a big
huge lecture. Well, this kid is not cooperating. The lecture is going to do
nobody any good. And so, just getting really clear about these and starting to
give the consequences that align with the stage your child is in is what's
going to help them move. -Vicki, have pointed out an important aspect of our
model here. And in fact, in the parenting power of program, we go into some detail on
how to each of these 3 stages of moral development. The
important factor to remember like like you pointed out. The consequences or
what need to be implemented at stage 1. And you don't get to decide what stage
your kids are on. They do. I mean if you got to decide, you to just have
them on stage 3. -It's so much easier. -Being all responsible and mature and
committed to moral values. Intrinsic motivation, internalized motivation.
That's what we're going for. But the important part as a parent is to meet
them where they are. You can't insist that their stage 3. You
can meet him at stage one and use consequences to help motivate them to go
to stage 2. At stage 2, we use consequences plus communication to
continue assisting their development towards stage 3. But they're the ones who
decide where they're going. We just need to correctly discern that
as a parent. And then approach them in an appropriate way based on their stage of
moral development. Vicki, you said something earlier that I
think is really important and that is to as we detach ourselves from the outcomes
and manage our own mood, consequences are more effective than parents mood
in helping kids to become more intrinsically motivated. Because your
anger or frustration or yelling and screaming which we all do and we've
gotten other videos here to help you with that. But that becomes a very
external motivator for your kids. They see that and they respond to that
instead of responding to their own internal motivations to do it. And that's
why it's so important to detach from those outcomes. -The key probably is to
just keep those lines of communication open. And have an opportunity create
opportunity to talk about principle with your child. -The principles really are the
internal motivators that we want them to attach to, eventually. Your kids will get
there. These steps will help you to encourage them along that path of
development. That was a really quick run-through of some things that we can
help you more with. Did you know that we've put together Live On Purpose
Central just for parents like you. If you'll come and join us over there, we'll
give you the tools that you need to become that parent you've been promising
yourself you would be. Live On Purpose central. There's a link in the
description. We'll see you there.
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