For one hundred unmotivated teens, there might be one hundred different solutions to motivating them. Parents often brainstorm ideas and look at online and community resources as they try to figure out how to address their child’s lack of motivation. Sometimes the fix to an unmotivated teen is as easy as being sure you Have a Morning Meeting for Homeschool Success.
How to Motivate Unmotivated Teens
Sometimes figuring out how to motivate is more challenging, and you do need to look carefully to find the problem. If you’re trying to figure out how to motivate a teenager, look over this list to see if you are missing an easy solution or failing to see an important safety concern.
- Have you studied learning styles?
- Have you incorporated enough play?
- Have shorter lessons.
- Alternate physical activity with seat work.
- Add fun in every subject.
- Enjoy games across the curriculum.
- Avoid using classroom-based textbooks.
- Incorporate your child’s interests.
- Have you included delight directed learning?
- Have a morning meeting.
- Stop doing too much.
- Keep reasonable school hours.
- Do you over-estimate your morning?
- Make sure the work is at the child’s level.
- Don’t over-work the child’s weak area.
- Opt out of classroom settings.
- Evaluate to see if the curriculum is a good fit.
- Don’t expect perfect attentiveness.
- Don’t expect instant independence.
- Encourage and embrace career interests and incorporate them!
- Provide a liberal arts education.
- Provide a variety of activities of interest.
- Wait it out.
- Try some gentle bribery and rewards.
- Spousal support is important.
- Natural consequences for actions.
- If-then statements to give limits.
- Limit technology.
- Look for hidden interests.
- Provide free time.
- Feed their specialization needs.
- Get them a job or allow them to have a job.
- Find them a mentor.
- Provide incentives.
- Allow honest feelings.
- Give more hugs and wrestle more.
- Say “I love you” more.
- Spend more time together.
- Spend more time in nature.
- Catch them doing something right.
- Seek a specialist for behavior diagnosis and modification.
- Subscribe to Mark Gregston’s free newsletter.
Homeschool Motivation Encouragement
It is hard to love an unmotivated teen at times. Don’t feel as if you’ve done something wrong, because it’s common. It can happen overnight; one day your child is pleasant, cooperative, and enthusiastic about learning, and the next day they aren’t. This can happen with girls or boys. Sometimes lack of motivation happens at a certain age. Hang in there!
Resource for Helping Unmotivated Teens
Don’t struggle alone. You will find more answers in my book, How to Motivate Homeschool Teens: Strategies for Inspiring Slug-Slow Students. In this book, you will learn:
- How to motivate a child and how to recognize it when it’s done right.
- How to recognize the lack of homeschool motivation or whether you are
facing an entirely different (and potentially more serious) issue. - How to identify the root causes of unmotivated teens and whether they
are internal (e.g., physical or emotional) or external (e.g.,
technology-related or academic). - The three “laws of motivating teenagers” and how to apply them in your homeschool.
- Tips and tweaks you can make to your homeschool to turn the tide and
motivate teens to take ownership of their education and life. - Answers to common homeschooler questions on how to motivate kids.
Learning these strategies can breathe life and peace into a highly-charged, emotional time between parents and teens. You will feel a renewed sense of hope once you have a clear understanding of what is happening inside your unmotivated teen.
How to Motivate Homeschool Teens is one of my Coffee Break Books, designed especially for busy parents who can’t spend hours doing research. These are perfect to read over a cup of coffee at your favorite coffee shop, or in your kitchen with a baby on your hip. Never overwhelming, always accessible and manageable, each book in the series will give parents the tools they need to tackle high school, one warm sip at a time.
Learn more in my video book review!
