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How Do You Motivate a Teenager to Learn?

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Earlier teenagers were the most hardworking members of society. Still, now the image of modern teenagers has become the lazy kids that want to sleep, play computer games, hang out with friends, and surf the internet.

The lazy teen’s image has become so commonplace that several people assume that being unmotivated and sluggish is a natural adolescence’s consequence. However, such thinking is understandable and yet misguiding as well.

But do you know that motivating teens can drastically change their state of mind and incline them towards learning more and attaining success? You, as a parent, play a crucial role in it. It is obvious to worry about teens’ futures, but it is entirely unfair to expect good results from them without motivating and guiding them.

Do you want to motivate your teen? Do you want to attain the desired success and plan a great future? Then you have come to the right place. Here we have compiled some essential tips you can do to motivate your teen to learn.

What Can You Do To Motivate Your Teen?

Here are a few simple yet essential things you can do to motivate your teenager to learn.

1. Get started with them

It is common for teens to get tired after a long day. As a result, they might get lazy about doing their homework. After all, dealing with the classes the whole day can be tiring. In such a situation, just telling your kids to study or learn won’t be sufficient.

Instead, you need to sit with your teen and help them with the same. Please help with the tasks that they find challenging to work on. If you can’t do that, you can also look for a tutor to help with their learning process.

2. Yelling won’t help, Discussing will

You need to essentially remember that yelling at your teen won’t help you at all. If you keep scolding your teen, then they might distance themselves emotionally from you and also may stop listening to you.

Despite yelling at your teen, you can do the following
Be calm, kind, and soft.
Make them understand why it is necessary
Discuss calmly how it is going to benefit them
Discussion and interacting well can be an effective way than long lectures and random yelling.

3. Boost their self-confidence

Confidence is an essential element in the learning process. Even if they learn a lot and study a lot but are unsure whether they are entirely done with it and write correctly in exams, it is of no worth. Self-confidence not only helps in studying and being confident about your answer, but it can help in the long-term learning process. So help your teen build the desired confidence.

Emphasize extracurricular activities

The learning process doesn’t only include studying all the time. It will help if you emphasize extracurricular activities. Highlighting studies only may curb their creative interests. To keep your teen’s interests alive, you need to do the following

Encourage the teen to go for some outdoor activities

Help them to dedicate time to their hobbies and activities of their interest.

Extracurricular activities can be an excellent way to enhance their skills.

Do not raise your expectations.

Set realistic goals for your teen. Do not raise your expectations very high. High expectations can constrain your teen and make them pressured and anxious.

Teach your teen to aim for consecutive and small goals at a time.

Teach them to set another goal once they have attained their previous target

Emphasize hard work and regular pattern

Working through successive plans can help your teen learn and achieve more in the long run.

Empathize

To motivate your teen to learn and perform well, you first need to understand how they feel or think. Then, try to put yourself in their shoes. Although teens are susceptible, talking to them and understanding their points can help them communicate better and share their hearts.

Help them learn from their mistakes.

It is not uncommon to make mistakes. Everyone does that, but the real survivors are those that learn from their mistakes. How the teen responds to their mistakes can have a significant impact on their learning and achievement strategy.

Teach them to learn from their mistakes instead of hiding them or looking for an escape from them. Tell them that rather than getting depressed by failures, treat them as opportunities so that they can work where they lacked and turn their loss into achievements.

Give them some control.

It is evident that teens need boundaries often, but have you ever tried giving them some responsibility and doing nothing but believing that they will do it, OK? Yes! If you haven’t tried it earlier, then do give it a try.

Please give them a sense of responsibility for their learning. If the teens feel trusted, they will take more pride in learning things independently and putting their whole-hearted efforts into attaining success. In addition, giving a sense of responsibility can be an exciting way for you to teach them to take their learning process to the next level.

However, some teens may need more encouragement than others. Some may require more of a helping hand but encouraging teens to follow and develop an independent learning approach can be rewarding.

Set realistic and achievable goals

It is easy to target a goal and push your teen to achieve it, but another side of the whole picture is entirely different. Achieving goals requires a lot of effort, patience, and dedication. Setting an unrealistic goal for your teen can put your teen under pressure.

Before setting goals for your teens, try to explore their capabilities and potential. Analyzing their ability to perform can help you develop some realistic goals for your teen.

Stop motivating teens to stop the stress.

Telling teens not to stress over something won’t help at all. Instead, you need to help them manage it. For example, try engaging your teen in some exciting activities that wipe away the teen’s stress and encourage them to do well and drop pressure out.

The most common reason for a stressed teen is reminding them about doing a thing a million times. Unfortunately, frequent reminders can create unnecessary stress on the teen. Here are some stressors you can eradicate for them.

Do not punish them for average grades

Don’t keep reminding about their college or school’s work

Stop constantly nagging about the same thing

No more staying on their cases all the time

Build strong relationship

Rebuilding a friendly and strong relationship can be a strong motivator. It gives the sense of feeling that they belong to someone who cares and can connect at any point in time. Become a source of strength for them and motivate them by mending a strong relationship.

Communicating well, so your teen opens their heart in front of you is indeed a blessing. There are so many ways to make you a good friend with your teen and let you spend some quality time with them.

Give independent support and encourage them to internalize the learning’s value.

As per the Self Determination theory developed by Deci and Ryan, teens who think they have control over their activities are more motivated. Conversely, teens cannot be motivated when they are pressured. Therefore when the teens are permitted to decide what activities to engage in, they will be self-inclined to perform the things they deem valuable.

Let them internalize the reasons to study. Instead of their focus on the phrase that “I need to study else, I would be punished,” their focus should be, “I need to study as learning is essential and there’s so much to learn.”

Which phrase do you think is more compelling? Indeed the second one. And that is what relationship building and internalizing will do.

Encourage dopamine replenishing activities.

Dopamine is related to brain functioning that can change the entire mood. With dopamine replenishing activities, we mean the physical activities of the teen’s interest that can enhance their mood and help regulate the dopamine release in the brain.

The regulation of dopamine levels in teens’ brains can enhance their mood and well-being, which indirectly keeps them happy, active and provides better brain functioning. In addition, when brain functioning is improved, it automatically boosts the study and learning activities.

Essentials to remember!

Motivating your teen doesn’t mean letting them do whatever they want.

The real trick for getting your teens to learn is through involvement, subtle support, supervision, and joint problem-solving.

Apart from all these, never hesitate to compliment your teen. Every minor thing matters; praise your teen for the slightest achievements as well.

Final Thoughts!

Motivation is indeed challenging. It is intricate to motivate a teen as the human brain is one of the most complicated systems. However, adopting some essential tips to encourage the teen can be a savior for you. The tips mentioned above can drastically change the learning process and help your teen stay motivated towards their learning and upscaling process.

If you are still worried about your teen’s motivational strategy and looking for some additional tips, then TEL Gurus is a great place to start. Let us together identify the motivation issues and help your teen build self-motivation.