How to motivate teenagers

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Transcription:

So many parents struggle with the issue of how to motivate their teenagers and they go to punishments and rewards to try and make it work with not much success. The reality is that motivation needs to come from inside. That's where it comes from. The definition of motivation is that it comes from internally. You can't do it externally. I mean you can. You can give kids money for doing things. You can give them extra time for doing things, but then they are just doing things for that, instead of that internal motivation. As much as parents don't want to hear it, it's looking for where the motivation exists in their life already. For many middle school kids, it's playing the game Minecraft. They just love this game. It's a video game or something else that they are doing. They are incredibly motivated there. There is a part of us that doesn't want to see them so engaged in so much time in these games, yet that's where they live. If we can learn to let them live there, they can learn what its like to really care about something and apply themselves. They need to do their homework and then they get to do this. What happens with time is this is the part that is difficult about parenting because we live in the present and it is hard to imagine the future of a slacker, and all they want to do is play Minecraft.

Video Categories: TEEN, Education, Studying and Homework, Parenting Teens, Consequences and Discipline

Michael Riera, PhD Educator & Author, shares advice for parents on the most effective ways to motivate your teenager and teach them to be self-motivated

Transcript

Expert Bio

Michael Riera, PhD

Head Of School, Brentwood School

Michael Riera, PhD, Educator, Author, Media Personality, and Speaker. Michael Riera is the Head of School at the Brentwood School, best-selling author, award-winning columnist, educator, television commentator, and national speaker on issues of children, adolescents, families, and parenting. Mike is the author of Right From Wrong: instilling a Sense of integrity in Our Children, Field Guide to the American Teenager, Uncommon Sense For Parents With Teenagers, and Surviving High School. His most recent book, Staying Connected To Your Teenager, was launched with three appearances on Oprah! For eight years he was the Family Consultant for CBS The Saturday Morning Early Show and also hosted an award winning television show on the Oxygen Network, Life in Progress, as well as his own daily radio show, Family Talk with Dr. Mike. Mike has worked in schools for over 20 years as a head of school, counselor, dean of students, teacher and consultant.