Motivation has always been a tough prospect around here. I don't know if it's brain differences (all those "fun" letters tacked on to our children as various diagnoses trying to identify each of their special needs), or just not hitting on the right system yet, but chore charts are impossible, nagging is worthless and no reward seems valuable enough to get our children to do what we want or need them to do (schoolwork, chores, etc.) They are too distractable, and they excel in distracting each other!
I noticed when looking at the website for the newest review product that there is an audio version of the DVD, with a slightly different title. "Motivating Boys & Other Children Who Would Rather Make Forts All Day," and honestly, I think that title is more accurate. That's what I got out of this DVD the most - how to MOTIVATE a child. Teaching, sure... but it's more about getting them to WANT to learn. And that's where motivation comes in.
Andrew Pudewa is one of the key instructors at the Institute for Excellence in Writing. In this engaging DVD (Teaching Boys & Other Children Who Would Rather Make Forts All Day) full of "aha" moments, he begins by explaining some key differences between boys and girls (in the way they learn, take in sight and sound, write and describe, process pain, temperature, stress and more). If you have both sons and daughters, I think you'll be able to confirm his hypotheses in the actions and responses you've seen in your own children.
He goes on to explain four ways to engage any child in learning. What he refers to as "relevancy" describes the way a child (or an adult for that matter) can become interested and excited about a topic - sometimes naturally, sometimes more contrived, but this is valuable information for any homeschooler that will affect the topics you choose to teach as well as how to pull your child into the subject.
He also describes 3 laws of motivation. Again, invaluable. If you've ever butted heads with your child over schoolwork, these basic principles will bring the hope of creating a win-win situation to the task of helping your child learn. You'll learn why children have such a draw to some subjects and aversion to others.
And he closes the lecture with 2 "secret weapons" of motivation. The key piece I pulled out here was to try to always include both a possible gain and a possible loss. Punishment (loss) alone leads to fatalist thinking ("I lose either way, I'm doomed.") Reward alone leads to a bidding war ("I won't do it for just that reward... how high will you go?")
At just $10 for the DVD, I highly recommend it. I think any parent (and especially homeschoolers) will pull out a lot of great info. IEW also sells full curriculums on spelling and also for teaching children to write well... and enjoy it! Since neither is a subject my children haven't taken to naturally, I'll definitely be seeing what else I can pull into our schooling from IEW. Keep an eye on the TOS Crew blog for a review of their spelling program (today) and their full writing programs in May (on my birthday, in fact!)
Ahh, the motivation delimma~ yes, this dvd was a great help for me in motivating my children, and understanding just why my boys and girls are so different in what helps!
Posted by: Tristan | 12/29/2010 at 07:09 AM
I'm looking forward to ordering this- great review!
FM Chris
Posted by: Chris Gunn | 12/31/2010 at 07:34 AM
For breakfast this morning, we had some plain (white and whole wheat) mini bagels to use up, but nothing exciting to put on them. Brian loves fruit-flavored cream cheese, but I hate paying $3 a tub! So this morning I set out to make some homemade. Since regular cream cheese can be fasdound for just a dollar on sale sometimes, I'm sure this recipe will be used again and again by our family, and I thought I should share
Posted by: Coach Outlet | 07/10/2011 at 08:45 PM