Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Motivated vs non-motivated

I am curious about everyone's opinion on motivated vs non-motivated gifted children. Is your child motivated? If not, why do you think they are not? If so, does it seem to be inherent? Or learned? Or both?

Why I am curious: No matter how smart someone is, they still need drive, motivation, & determination to succeed. A brilliant mind helps for sure.. but without drive a great mind can be wasted. What helps motivate the unmotivated? Are the unmotivated destined for mediocracy? Or is there a way to teach/encourage the drive to work hard?

Any answers I could give for my DD would vary widely depending on the specific activity. She might fall into any one of these categories at any time:

- High intrinsic motivation
- Moderate intrinsic motivation
- Low intrinsic motivation, but subject to select external motivations (tread carefully)
- Stubborn refusal

And anywhere in the top three categories, she can be subject to self-sabotage.

Well, with my son it just seems to depends on the topic and the day... he's not particularly motivated at school anymore, and I can't really blame him.

My DD15 is very motivated. She studies on her own and wants all "A"s.

When she was young, we did her homework together and did all of it. I did not remark on it being beneath her - just that it was training her to simply do her work. I told her that we always do the bonus questions - and she still does them.

I feel that my attitude towards the work helped her to understand that it is important - even if it is easy.

It certainly has paid off as she has grown older. She plans on going to Medical School.

Some combination of epoh and Dude's answer here would also be mine.

My DD is seldom intrinsically motivated to do the things others place value upon.

She is NOT motivated by anything that she thinks is both: a) graded, and b) has little to offer her in the way of intrinsic reward.

I offer the second caveat to note that she is very passionate about community service and about helping others. But about school, beyond making sure that she has straight A's (or A+ grades), it's merely about playing the game and it has nothing to offer her in the way of reward, never mind actual learning. She goes through the motions, and as long as she's reasonably compliant, we call it a day and leave it alone.

She likes to learn. School isn't about "learning" for her except in quick flashes, so she's not wrong to feel unmotivated.

She is motivated to read, to role-play game with her friends, and to produce art (both physical and digital), and to help other people (community service, tutoring, etc.).

RE:No matter how smart someone is, they still need drive, motivation, & determination to succeed.

This is true. I see highly gifted children grow up to do nothing because it is all beneath them. Teaching them to do "boring work" is very important if you want them to succeed.

I have been observing this behavior for years and you can set their priorities and expectations.

This is me. (I'd even venture to say that motivation is more important than IQ).

My biggest fear is that I've modeled a lack of motivation for my kids, and they'll grow up like me too. It's frustrating, and one of my daily challenges is to figure out a way around it.

I would add a secondary set of questions: who's to say that an unmotivated person has wasted anything? What if they are happy as they are? What if that *is* their contribution to the world - happiness with themselves, no need to change the world, no need to be ahead or on top or whatever.

Please note, I'm an extremely (*extremely*) driven person. I have a motivated 13 year old, an extremely uber-achievement motivated 8 year old, and a 10 year old who is simply happy just to be. I have no idea where any of them will end up in their adult lives (at this point) but my wish for all of them is simply that they are happy wherever they land.

What I don't understand is adults who say they never "learned" how to be motivated and complain about how that has caused them issues in life. If you are unhappy where you are and you have the means/ability to make a change, why doesn't that prompt you to be motivated to make a change?

polarbear

Polar bear, I love your post. When I worry about motivation in my kids, I remind myself of my own situation. I was the uber driven Ivy Leaguer. I am happy and fulfilled and I have a career that is very meaningful to me, but I'm not setting the world on fire. My sister pretty much watched TV her entire youth. Mediocre grades, no extracurricular activities, partied a lot in college. She now has her own firm that is at the absolute top of her field internationally. She does speaking engagements, publishes books, sits on non-profit boards.

Ha! So much for being "most likely to succeed!" (though I sincerely believe that I too have succeeded!)

I'm confused-- is this a typo? Did you mean that one may "see" priorities? Or a statement that it is possible for parents to shape motivation?

I'm not sure that I agree that such a thing is possible for all kids.

Some kids are their own people from birth-- and NO amount of external pressors exerts much influence on their intrinsic processes without their assent. They are the ones that proudly wear teeshirts that proclaim "I reject your reality and substitute my own!" They aren't oppositional or defiant until you cross their internal agenda... but more like perniciously indifferent.

Persuasive methods may work to a limited degree, but only as far as their perspective and maturity allow them to accept the logic of what they are being told.

The bottom line is that most 10yo's DON'T have reason to believe that studying hard now will seem more important to themselves at 30yo than playing more WoW instead will have. After all, this is really about aligning priorities, not about intrinsic motivation in a general sense. My DD is motivated all right. She's just not motivated in the ways that the adults in her life would prefer.

This has always been a tremendous challenge with my DD. Even as a toddler, you could not do ANYTHING with her that required her active cooperation unless you convinced her first. She was quite logical... but still, she was two/three/four/five, albeit a PG kid. I can recall having to explain to her WHY she should bother to become toilet trained. Truly not kidding; this was a very striking example of something that she saw no particular benefit in, and felt was more about OUR desires than hers.