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This is another common question we encounter at BrainFit Studio. When their child is not motivated, parents often blame it on an uninspiring teacher, wrong teaching techniques, laziness or a bad learning attitude. While some of these may be the cause, most of the time, a lack of motivation is related to inadequate competence and insufficient experiences of success.

Imagine that you are filled with zest and excitement as you attend your first tennis class. You have bought yourself an expensive tennis racquet and found yourself a good coach. As you return the ball to your coach, your body feels uncoordinated and you keep missing the ball. Now imagine that for most of the 45min class, you were picking up balls, with only a few successes in hitting the ball. Despite your coach’s constant reminders to bend your knees and keep your eyes on the ball, you just have a hard time hitting the ball.

Now, you may convince yourself that this poor performance is simply because it is your first class. With more classes and practice, you remain confident you can be a good tennis player some day. Imagine you have now attended 10 classes, and each time, your performance is only marginally better than what you did in your first class. At this point, do you think your zeal and excitement for tennis will still be at the same high level as before? Probably not. In fact, it is likely that you may give up on the game altogether!

Remember, we are usually motivated to do things we are able to succeed in. While we may need to put in effort, we can also feel the rewarding sense of achievement and pride as we accomplish the task. We may not always be successful on every occasion, but certainly, there are enough experiences of success to make us want to try harder and do better next time, ie. being motivated. If, after putting in excessive effort, our lack of competence continuously causes success to be out of reach, motivation will ultimately start to diminish as well.

If you are concerned that your child is not motivated for school or learning in general, ask yourself, is your child experiencing enough successes in school and learning? Is he competent in learning such that the effort he puts in matches the successes he experiences? If the answers are “no”, then you need to take a step back and think about helping him be more competent and to achieve more learning success. Increasing your child’s brain fitness – memory, attention, thinking speed etc. – can build competence, accelerate your child’s learning and give him more successful experiences in school.

“What I want for Conrad is not just more marks in the exams, I want deeper and more significant changes that are life skills. I want Conrad to be more motivated and pro-active, with good study habits. BrainFit Studio’s programmes are certainly doing that – helping Conrad develop into a confident and positive-minded learner!“ Mdm Png, Mother of 11-year-old Conrad

Article contributed by BrainFit Studio