How do you motivate a bright but lazy child?

[UnrequitedSkink]

Had DS's parents' evening tonight. He's in Y5 and doing fine - it's a high achieving class, and he's somewhere in the middle. However, his teacher kept reiterating how he didn't feel that DS was making his best effort and that he felt he was capable of far more.

At home we struggle to make him do more than the bare minimum of homework, and that can take hours of persuasion. DS's teacher pretty much said that DS has a very laid back approach, and that he would hate to see him coast through life never giving more than the least required. And TBH I can see this happening and it breaks my heart because he's such a bright, happy boy.. but oh my goodness, he is lazy.

DS takes criticism very badly but responds well to praise, so for now all I have said is that his teacher really likes him and is pleased with his progress (and he has made progress since going into the class) and that he thinks that DS could be among the top achievers in the class! And to that end he's going to give DS a little bit of extra homework every night to help really push him along. This went down surprisingly well, and DS was quite taken with the idea in principle, but I know that in practice I'm going to struggle to get him to be disciplined and work hard...and to a degree I sympathise, they already get quite a lot of homework I feel.

Has anyone got any tips on how to keep him motivated, or stories of being in a similar situation? It actually is breaking my heart thinking of him in a few years working in a dead end job with no prospects ok I may be overtired and emotional now :(

I have no idea what the answer is, but perhaps you could try talking though your fears with him. Maybe introduce him to some shelter workers and charity directors who can tell him what the unfortunate side of life looks like and then take him for days out in Oxford and Cambridge and show him what the privileged path to life looks like. Ask a headmaster to give him a tour of a grammar school (even one that's not local) and tell his teacher what you've done.

Then let him figure it out for himself from there....

I give you 'my brother'.....
He is the high flier of our family [few siblings] but was a lazy sod all through school. He did not shine because he could not be bothered.
My Mum had to pay for him to do o' levels as school refused to - he passed them with minimum effort.
Did not want to do A levels and was right not to. Structure of school did not suit him.
Worked his way up and shone in everything he has done.
Big house and all the trimmings.
His plodding do as they are told siblings that did as they were told and did well at school?
All of us supremely average!!!
Don't despair!!!

Some of the most successful people I know are v bright but coasted through education. My db is a consultant and spent school life doing the bare minimum to get by and pulled all of the stops out when it mattered - he had figured out the system early on.

If you can get your son to be ambitious about his future that might help motivate him in the shorter term.

I have one like that ( yr7) so watching with interest.

As you say he is motivated by praise I would praise every single meagre amount of effort he displays, in any sphere of life. Don't praise the outcome, praise the effort that went into it, to the rooftops.

It might also do him some good to know what it feels like to get better at something through effort, so maybe get him involved in some sport or other extra curricular activity (which also minimises the amount of time he has for lazing around).

I would also take every opportunity to talk about people who are successful, and people who aren't - discussion, rather than lecturing iyswim. So use family members or celebrities who have achieved their success through hard work, or even say something if he points out a smart car or a huge house when you are out and about, or has friends who have exotic holidays - "yes I suppose they must have great jobs, they really must have worked hard at school".

The problem with celebrities is that what many of them have in common is their lack of qualifications! The Oxbridge cabinet ministers are all obviously qualified, (but who wants to be like any of them?) The only big houses that I know which are definitely lived in by well qualified people are the ones near our hospital where the consultant surgeons and their families live. That's the only connection I know of where school/university work and a big house are actually linked.

My DS was a bit like this, right up until this year. He's now in Y6 and, because SATs are coming up, they've been subject to an inordinate number of tests and practice papers this year -- and they all know their marks and, it seems, everyone else's.
One of the first papers they did was a Maths paper. He came fourth in the class, three marks away from the girl who came top. He said, "X is always top of the class." I said, "Well, she only got three marks more than you, and as far as I can make out, you've never done any work. If you wanted to be top of the class, I reckon you could do it if you put in a bit of effort."
It was a real lightbulb moment for him. Since then, he has been working really quite hard. I don't think he realised that he was at all competitive -- which is a bit weird because DH and I are both REALLY competitive!

But, and I remember thinking about this some years ago, is there anything really wrong with coasting through school, providing you are bright enough still to achieve a decent level? You don't actually need to be top of the class in every single subject in order to get on in life. Your DS obviously hasn't found his passion yet. once he does, he won't need motivating to work hard.

Getting the most out of yourself doesn't have to be about beating other people. Competition is one measure of success but it's not the only one.

adeu... could you please give examples of "praising the effort not the outcome"? I have read about this technique but find it difficult to put into practice -- in part because the "effort" often isn't particularly striking (even when the outcome is ok) and in part because I can't think of what to say other than "well done for working so diligently" (assuming there's a grain of truth in that comment!). What else can be said about "effort" without having it linked to "outcome"?

DS was a bit like this - very, very bright, but did absolute minimum of homework, and only put much effort into anything if he was really interested in the subject.

He was like that during primary and the first year or two of secondary, then he somehow realised that putting a bit more effort into things made a huge improvement in his grades. It may help that he's at a selective academic school, so they are closely monitored and have a lot of tests and exams. I think there is also a growing amount of peer pressure and competition. He's now in year 10, and after getting As and Bs and a few Cs in year 7 and 8, and not very impressive effort grades, he is now getting all A*s and top effort grades.

I think it's a question of maturity, really (year 5 is still very young), and also finding academic subjects more interesting as they get more challenging.

I have to admit that I coasted all through school, apart from perhaps the final year of sixth form - my old reports are all a variation on the theme of 'could try harder', and DS's reports sounded very familiar - but in those days listening in class and being naturally bright were enough to get you As in everything. It's much more structured now.

I agree about school performance not necessarily equalling life success. I was a proper swot at school and although I've done "Ok" I know lots of people who did far less well at school but financially at least, are far more successful.

However, what worries me (I have 2 DSs just the same) is that many of the "work your way up" opportunities are gone. For example, I worked in a bank for 20+ years. Most of the senior managers, including the CEO, had left school at 16, messed about for the first few years in work and applied themselves once life got serious. Today, the entry level jobs that they went into at 16 would only be open to graduates.

I also agree with exexpat. my dad left school at 14 when, he says, he was just starting to get into it. He thinks GCSEs should be a year later for boys!

Depending on where you are in school these days you can no longer leave at 16. It also matters what state the economy is in and teachers and parents can't do anything about that. But there's no point in having a degree in geology and being sent to work in Poundland stacking shelves.

learnandsay I agree with you. I was just saying that it was a sense of competition that inspired my DS to put more effort into his schoolwork.

The question was, 'how do you motivate a bright but lazy child?' That might be one way.

Money, material goods.

Whenever DS (y8) moans about our mismatching crockery or his paltry pocket money, I point out that he will need to work hard so he can get those things in his future.
It helps if they end up in a set of others who work hard, in a subculture of expecting to work for their success; DS had a few years of being very top pupil but now he's in a better school where he is decidedly avg in his set. He can see just how hard others work, the details and effort that they put into homework, for instance. He's not daft, he can see that effort will take them far.

HorribleMother, interesting idea. Are you careful to distinguish between practical materialism (such as given in your example) and the tasteless materialism in popular culture or doesn't it matter for your purposes?

OP, you say that your DS is going to have some extra homework, but that you're "going to struggle to get him to be disciplined and work hard...".

While I think that homework supervision is necessary at primary school, sometimes you have to let go. If he's not sufficiently disciplined let the school deal with him. Otherwise his homework is your problem. And the situation won't improve at secondary school. He'll have so much homework that you won't be able to micro-manage it, and it'll be even worse then.

And honestly, worrying about your son's future dead-end job at this age is premature. He might be incredibly hard working now, but that doesn't mean he's going to achieve at 16. Conversely, he might kick into his work stride in his teens when he gets that it's important.

I suppose I'm looking at extrinsic motivation, either way.
All this gumphf about intrinsic motivation, education for the sake of education, lovely ideals, but it's not enough for most of us to grit teeth & slog thru the boring stuff. I have been slagged off on here before for saying that education is mostly about future employment, though (I know I expressed this better, previously). That and contributing something back to society.

To DS, I even point at jobs and talk about what kind of training that means, what kind of working conditions and pay are involved.

DS has way better taste than I do, so no worries about tasteless materialism with him.

learnandsay - I agree, and you would have to choose your celebrity carefully! My point was to demonstrate that effort leads to success, so personally I would use sportspeople or bestselling authors. I know I'm simplifying, but I'm not sure getting into the nitty gritty of it is the best thing to do with a 9yo, just let the general message sink in and he'll learn that there are exceptions later on

And you don't have to know that the householder worked hard at school in order to tell a white lie - I remember by DS talking about a house we passed every day with a pool, and I used to say that they must be very hardworking people, when for all I knew they were bank robbers.

posadas - I think you've got it exactly right. There's nothing wrong with saying well done on achieving a great score in the maths exam of course, but then to make sure that you point out how they deserve it because they worked so hard. Or you were proud of how they never gave up in the football match, even thought they were lost the game, or whatever.

Thank you all for the considered replies, I'm so pleased by the range of advice! I think to a degree I have been doing some of the things suggested - we often talk about careers and I do encourage him to think in terms of the kind of lifestyle he wants to maintain when he's older and what he will have to do to achieve it (with a good dash of 'it's more important to be doing a less well-paid job you love than one that pays well that you hate....but you def won't be happy if you have no money at all ) He's definitely NOT of the learning for learning's sake school of thought, sadly. In fairness, I don't think I could see it that way until I left uni so I can't blame him.

He has recently been quite keen on the idea of being a camera man (Africa has a lot to answer for) so I suppose I could do some research and see if I can find someone he can write to for advice, that's a great idea. And the praising him for effort I can see I could do a lot more of. Competition also works to a degree, although as he's in a class of so many high-fliers, I think it sometimes seems a bit pointless to him to even try and catch up!

Jeee I know I should let the school worry about discipline and homework, but it's me who wants him to do extra work, to get him up to speed. The school can only do so much and I do think that certain concepts,particualrly in maths, are lost on him until he brings them home and I can sit down and go through them with him. He just hates actually sitting down at the table and applying himself...even tonight, his attitude was actually very good, but homework that should have taken an hour took two, because he's up and down, checking what DS2 is up to, wandering about, chatting away...I don't want to stifle him but I actually wonder how his teacher gets him to produce any work at all!

Another motivating factor, which I think might be more powerful than any of the above. It's rather simple & maybe only applies in our case: Staying with his same friends.

DS got dumped into his set by chance, school was guessing (no SATs or CAT info). He's done Okay, BUT he won't be up to staying with this group if he doesn't start making more effort, being more organised. If he wants to keep his much treasured social circle, he needs to focus.

Hi UnrequitedSkink

I think base cunning is usually worth a try.

Does he like gaming? Get him to do maths games whilst you cook. Maybe just 10 minutes or so at first - but it's practice.

MATHS:

good webistes: BBC Bitesize KS2: www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks2/maths/

specific area help from BBC Learning KS2: www.bbc.co.uk/schools/teachers/keystage_2/topics/maths_ks2.shtml - links to games/ worksheets

Woodland Junior School Mathszone: resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/ - again task specific practice work by video games mainly.

Cool Maths: www.coolmath-games.com/

Maths champs (select games for 9 - 11): www.mathschamps.co.uk/#home

If he likes a challenge try NRICH Maths (a series of problems to solve which are pretty challenging designed by Cambridge University): nrich.maths.org/secondary-upper

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READING:

Can't watch the movie until you've read the book. DH thought of this - but it's been great. Good news with the Hobbit is it's one book in 3 films so can read in thirds, usually by half-way they want to finish anyway.

Great for Harry Potter, Holes, Lord of the Rings, Railway Children, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, etc...

Autobiography/ Biography: Does he idolize someone? Check out an autobiography on that person or Biography.

History: Does he really like a particular period of history? Fiction related to period or factual book related to that period.

Magazines and comics count too!

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Writing

Don't fill in the forms for him, make him do it.

Don't e-mail off for competitions - have him write an old fashioned letter.

Thank you letters (old fashioned yes, but grandmas and grandpas, aunties and uncles absolutely love them).

comics: Don't underestimate the power of the comic strip. There are on-line comic strip makers (e.g.: www.bitstrips.com/create/comic/) which gets him thinking of plots and stories lines & writing. Some schools have signed up to this kind of thing already - so ask him if that's the case at his school.

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Science

Don't underestimate the power of good TV: Many of the documentaries are great for this and very pleasant viewing. Evil DH plan #2 is we can only eat in front of TV if we watch a documentary.

For example the migration of the monarch butterfly will be on BBC Four on Saturday (9 - 10 p.m. - late so record it).

But there's tons of documentaries on all sorts of things geography, history, biology, astronomy. Springwatch and Autumnwatch can be fun and Stargazing life/ Stars at Night are also brilliant.

BBC websites are great for this kind of thing and often have resources.

Also brilliant for history, geography, religion (i.e. recent wonderful programme by Dan Snow on Syria combining all of this & bringing us bang up to date with the troubles there: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rb2st - 6 days left on iplayer so not long left.

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They have now dropped homework requirements in primary schools in England, but basically if your DS can put in 30 minutes a day (reading, writing (competitions, thank you letters, etc...) and on maths games - he'll gradually develop that habit of doing a bit after school, which will be good for senior school when that will be required and essential for progress.

sorry about NRICH link - should be to upper primary (not secondary): correct link here: nrich.maths.org/primary-upper

Bribery. Works every time.