[supersync]

Well said.

The glaring piece missing from this analysis is the psychology of the young men themselves.

Raising two young men myself, I’m blown away by how powerful cultivating intrinsic motivation is. My eldest just went from constant gaming/sleeping/hiding in his room to working a full-time job, launching a side hustle, and enrolling in classes.

Yes, my modeling & encouragement mattered. But the fulcrum was him accepting that living up to other people’s expectation in high school had left him tired, depressed, and lost.

The author has clearly identified that young man lack a goal worthy of their efforts.

He’s just completely ignored intrinsic motivation and the power of cultivating it.

I don’t think that’s an accident. I think our entire approach to young men as a society ignores the fundamental power of their interests.

[scotty79]

> The author has clearly identified that young man lack a goal worthy of their efforts.

For me it felt like the title would reflect reality better if it was rephrased to "Society has nothing to offer to young men and they respond by not pursuing anything."

[dandellion]

While you juxtapose gaming/hiding in your room and working/classes they're not mutually exclusive. I work a full-time job, take classes, have a sidle hustle, never leave my room, play way too many video games and sleep in almost every day.

[skyde]

father of a 4 years old boy. please help me! How do you cultivate intrinsic motivation ? any good strategy or book?

[analog31]

I've got two kids in college. Perhaps one thing is to avoid being consumed by your own fear of them failing. For a lot of the tasks they're given, if they're halfway intelligent, then the only hurdles will be attention and motivation. So, of you are the one supplying them with those things, then you're the one doing the work. "I'm not going to do your homework, but I'm going to make you do it," is doing their homework.

With that said, the tasks are going to come on hot and heavy sooner than you expect. I didn't have homework in grade school. At all. My kids had mountains of homework. Giving them too much to manage on their own, while telling you not to manage it for them, would seem like a cruel joke, but I don't know any other answer.

Also, you could be more disciplined than I was about my own chores. I didn't need to clean the bathrooms every week at the same time, but maybe had I set up a schedule like that, it might have modeled better habits in my kids. Or maybe not. ;-)

[DeathArrow]

I just use common sense, I try to explain why doing something is good and try to make the kid to have a desire to accomplish something. Also things have to feel more fun and less of a chore. If that fails, I have to resort to authority ("please do this because I ask you to"). If that also fails, I have to use carrot and stick strategy ("you will get that toy only if" or "you won't watch cartoons unless").