| The single most powerful thing we’ve done is encourage our kids’ interest and allow the other things to slide. One of my kids gets near perfect grades in everything in a competitive honors college. One is years beyond their grade. Another is taking extraordinary risks to pursue their career. If you are working with children who have strong intellectual capacity, you diminish it by treating learning as a grind. If they don’t have it, they need a very clear motivator to grind through what they will never excel at. Either way, Maria Montessori’s advice to “follow the child” is the most powerful and unique choice you can make. If you ever find yourself asking (or discussing with teachers/staff) “How do I motivate my child?” then you’ve already steered off the path. The only sustainable motivation is intrinsic. Children’s motivations radically change over their development. Reading up on normative childhood development can be very helpful as a parent. You’ll learn that at every age there are skills your child just isn’t ready to develop, even though they will need to later, and there are ones that are worth supporting them in developing. Regression is normal. Rebuilding previously developed skills is normal. It’s disorienting, scary, and occasionally marvelous. |