10 Tips For Parents - Keeping Your Child Motivated in School

Motivation refers to a set of personal factors that in part explain why a person behaves the way they do in a particular situation. Research has found that high school dropouts are at three times the risk of living in poverty compared to their peers who complete high school.

As a parent the first true test of your motivational skills will be keeping your five-year old motivated once he/she realizes that school consists of the 3 R's (reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic) and not the 3 S's (snacks, Sesame Street, and sleeping). Your job will only get tougher as they get older and other competing interests come into play like cell phones, ipods, internet, boyfriends/girlfriends and driving privileges. Below are some tips to help you keep your child motivated in school.

1. Discuss the importance of school and an education to your child.

2. Ask your child each day how their day went in school. Make sure they give you specifics.

3. Find out if they have any homework or class project that is due.

4. If your child does not have any homework make sure they spend at least 30 minutes studying, reviewing and practicing their lessons.

5. Be sure to read and discuss with your child any progress notes that are sent home. If necessary place restrictions on their activities or give consequences for misbehavior.

6. Reinforce the positives. Don't only focus on the negatives or misbehavior.

7. Encourage your child if they don't do well on a quiz or test.

8. If your child is having academic problems, seek help from the teacher, a tutor or afterschool program.

9. Talk with the teacher about different options and resources to help your child if he/she has a learning problem.

10. Maintain regular ongoing contact with your child's teacher(s) regarding your child's academic progress and behavior.

About the Author:

Felecia D. Sheffield, PhD, is an author, trainer, international speaker and life coach. Dr. Sheffield has over 15 years of experience providing services to parents, schools, colleges, universities, and social services agencies. For additional parenting articles, ADHD, LD and college resources visit http://www.psychcore.com/

Does Student Motivation Leads To Low Test Scores?

First you have to understand that there are different kinds of motivation they are called intrinsic and extrinsic. Extrinsic motivation is when an external incentive is given to the student to generate motivation and intrinsic motivation is when the student has a genuine interest in learning more about the topic.

Usually teachers measure the knowledge of the students by applying tests and giving a score depending on how well was the test answered. Most people think that test scores are a motivation for the student to learn more to achieve a better grade however that is not always the case.

Students that don't have real interest in the topic are just going to study enough to pass the test and they will be happy with that. The problem is that the student is just receiving incentive motivation and they will don't have a real interest in a deep understanding of the topic, so they are fine with low test scores, they just want to pass.

The only way to motivate the students to achieve higher test scores is with intrinsic motivation, they teacher needs to create a genuine interest in the subject, although this is not an easy task and many students will not be interested in the subject anyway.

The teacher needs to create interactive learning strategies and creative techniques to teach the students a topic in a way that they get interested and they want to participate.

There have been some studies that reveal that students are more motivated to learn more by applying tests than by doing homework. The reason of this, is because students know that they get punished with a low score if they don't study, on the other hand, when they do their homework, they don't pay too much attention or don't give a lot of weight to the work they have to do, they know that homeworks can be done easily just by looking at their notes without the need of a deep understanding of the subject.

If you want to find more up to date information and tips of how to improve student motivation and the different techniques to use visit: Student motivation strategies at http://selfmotivationtechniques.com/