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This is more a parental vent. I know some of the responses I am going to get on motivation and intiative. DD5 is showing motivation and iniative for things like math. Yes, it is summer, yes, she is on the beach most of the day, but DH bought these math workbooks at the dollar store and DD5 is picking them up after dinner and doing problems. Pages of them.

But we are spending the summer learning to read music. That is our goal for the summer so that she refrains from just memorizing pieces. It is somewhat frustrating and we tend to do it after lunch, after a morning at swim camp. But we are only doing 20 minutes a day and it is like pulling teeth. But I do not want to spend the good money on her piano teacher in the fall and do this when we can just get it done this summer. She is really doing well but hates it. So we decided she could decide on something she really wants and gets a star for everyday she really cooperates and after 50 stars she gets the thing.

It really isn't that hard, and she knows a lot of the basics, but trying to get her to change the habit of reading the music, instead of memorizing, is painful -- for me. We are using the easiest pieces in her book, but then she can play them easily and memorize them easily also. So then we have to move away from the piano and just get her to tell me the notes. But then by the 3rd day, I think she has just memorized what the notes are.

I just thought of when she was 2 and memorized 30 books we read to her. Soon after that she was reading. I hope for a similarly smooth transition this summer. What a pain.

Ren

I think it is harder to get them to work as they get older. When my DS was 3 he would do anything for ONE m&m LOL Now he has other interests he wants to play vidoe games play on the computer etc. I have to bribe him w/computer time now to get him to do some work so he doesn't go brain dead!

Some scattered thoughts. Take them as you will:

-- maybe a different time of day would be better? There's something about swimming/chlorine that's kind of tiring... or maybe she's hungry.. or, or... Is there time early in the morning before swimming? Or maybe last thing at night (so that she feels like she's getting an extra 20 minutes before she has to go to bed)?

-- rotate "reading" activities. maybe try pieces she doesn't know, so the incentive is she reads a bar, then she plays it and finds out what it sounds like, then reads the next bar, plays it, etc. until she's done the whole piece. and play games like "guess that note" where you play a note while she's not looking at the piano and she has to guess what that note is (and maybe write it down?) Or give her sections of pieces that she already knows and have her read them so that she can figure out what piece it is. (Does that make sense? Like the third bar of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star or something). Mix it up, and make it seem more like play than work.

-- And finally, go easy on herself and you. There's no reason she has to be a sight reader by August. Hopefully, you'll have a lifelong music lover, and one day she'll be reading the most astounding pieces. She can get to that place from insane amounts of exposure, sprinkled with a bit of formal teaching. (This reminds me of my typing skills. Haven't needed to look at the keyboard in well over a decade; wasn't taught that -- just exposure.)

G'luck and remember to have fun!

The only positive thing that works for my ds7 is earning "minutes". His bedtime is 7.30pm - but he can earn minutes in many ways that he can then redeem to stay up later. We keep a log of his minutes - we randomly give them to him, usually 5 at a time - but he can also lose them. This has worked way better than long term goals - such as getting so many stickers on a chart or whatever. Last night he used 5 minutes to stay up later so he could sit and snuggle with me on the couch a little longer

OH Lord ... don't tell me this. LOL My DD has never been the type to do anything unless she wants to and incentives never worked on her BUT I was hoping as she got older it would. Back to the drawing board for me.

IE. Potty training - we bought her this beautiful Calico Doll House that she was begging for but she could have cared less once it was in the house. It sat there for nearly a year before she finally decided to potty train. grrrr

IE. Reading - DD knew all her letters and sounds before she was 18 months and even showed an interest in reading right before turning 2 because she recognized a lot of words but the minute I sat down with her to 'teach' her anything it was met with resistance and refusal. Nothing I would offer her would change that. But one day she sat down with the Bob books and decided she was going to read and did. But even today, if she isn't in the mood she isn't going to give in to it. And I have to wonder how this is going to effect her schooling. Right now she is happy to do whatever they are doing in class and maybe it's because I'm not doing it.

LOL @ Kathlyn's mom. I chose to ignore that gets-harder-when-they're-older bit. Will cross that bridge when we get there. But, yes, there is something to that not-mommy factor. (Which, btw, Ren, makes me wonder if maybe the music lessons might be worth it. Just b/c she doesn't enjoy doing it with you doesn't mean she won't do it w/ someone else.)

NCPMom - Neat idea. Unfortunately, we don't run like clockwork in this house, so not sure we could apply something like that, but still, I can see how that would be a great incentive.

I don't know whether it'll help, but I think this is a good thing! It's all very convenient to adults when young children can be motivated into doing something by a bribe or threat, regardless of the worth of the thing itself, but that's fundamentally childish. Surely what we should be encouraging is that they choose whether to do something or not based on whether it's the right thing to do (and that they realise that sometimes that is the same as whether they want to do it, and sometimes not!)

I get what you are saying and I do agree with you BUT I'm afraid DD's lack of wants has more to do with her perfectionism. Going back to the reading: All of her learning was self motivated. This was the kid at 6 months bringing book after book over to me and asking what's this? and what's that? I certainly had no plans to teach her the abcs but if I didn't answer her or when I tried to engage her in something else it never worked. She had a drive to know and I answered her questions. Then around 15 months she learned the sounds of all the letters. And between 18 months and before 2 years she was recognizing all the store names and many words in the books that we were required to read to her over and over. Our day was all about books. This kid would have been happy with just books. But when we showed excitement about her abilities she freaked out and went into hiding. She dropped reading immediately and I left it alone. Once and a while when she showed interest I would attempt to 'teach' her but learned really quickly that it wasn't a good idea. I finally decided that when she is ready she will let me know and she did, but I think the reason she wasn't ready was because she wasn't 'perfect' at it. The minute she makes a mistake she clams up and has nothing to do with it.

So without forcing them or using incentives which doesn't work on DD; how do you get them to try and accept that you have to practice? That is the big question that I still haven't figured out.

Colinsmum, I disagree that incentives are always childish. Personally, I wouldn't do the unpleasant parts of my job if I weren't getting paid. Students work harder in college to keep their grades up. It's part of how the world works.

It's lovely when they are intrinsically motivated to do good things, and we give high praise when our kids show that kind of motivation. But when they're not, I don't think there's anything wrong with an appropriate incentive (deployed in advance, not as a midstream negotiation).

Ren, I know my kids would never be able to do a task like learning to read music right after swimming; they are always brain dead for a while after the pool. And I don't think I'd be inclined to force the issue with something "optional" like reading music, not with a child that young. She might just hate it later because she was pushed, which would be a shame. But your mileage may vary.

Just my two cents,
DeeDee

What happens if you just let them work it out for themselves? I mean, don't teach, don't correct, just help when asked? (This is different from waiting till she's ready for you to teach her, which might never happen. It's not always that easy - John Holt wrote about the "teacher devil" sitting on his shoulder, and his struggles to get rid of it, and this struck a chord with me!) The importance of practice is pretty obvious from one's own experience, after all; I don't think I buy the idea that children have to be taught this. Crows seem to learn that they have to practise using sticks to get things out of bottles, after all - it isn't a very sophisticated concept. I daresay it can't hurt for parents to model it - doing things they don't find easy, persevering, using their intelligence to get better - but I doubt that that's all that important. Personally I find it plausible that undermotivated adults are those who as children had too much extrinsic motivation as children, not too little.