Our basic need

Learning how to motivate your child can feel like a huge exercise in futility.  We can try our best with all kinds of sticker charts, prize boxes, candy rewards, etc. and still feel like we aren’t speaking our child’s language.  While we need to figure out what specifically motivates each of our children so we can help them achieve their goals, I have learned that there’s one important motivator that seems so obvious it can be easy to overlook.

My first thoughts about how each child is motivated by different rewards and consequences came through a nannying job I had during my summers home from college.  I worked with a family who had a little girl with Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome.  I could try to describe this syndrome, but I think you’ll find this website does a much more complete job than I could:  http://wolfhirschhorn.org.  For the sweet girl I worked with, it meant at 9 years-old she couldn’t speak, couldn’t eat orally, wasn’t potty-trained, and had a host of physical and developmental delays.  And I loved her.  I wanted so badly to reach past those difficulties and struggles to reach her heart.  She wasn’t a pushover by any means.  She was a tough little fighter who had strong preferences she sometimes wasn’t able to communicate.  That would be frustrating to any of us and it truly was frustrating to her.  I made it my goal to find what motivated her and figure out what she enjoyed so I could encourage her positive behavior.

This seems so simple with your average little kid.  Candy, movie time, a favorite toy, a game together, a word of praise- all of those things can be used to reward good behavior.  So what to do when you’re trying to reach to the heart of somebody who can’t eat, can’t enjoy the normal pleasures of childhood, and who can’t communicate with you?  I’ve always been a problem solver and this was a puzzle I loved.  It was my joy to find out what brought her joy.  She loved to splash in the water.  It was the time I heard her laugh the loudest.  She liked to see me make an idiot out of myself by jumping around and cheering for her.  She liked to lay beside me on the couch and rest against me.  It took a lot of trial and error, but what I really learned was that she was motivated by what motivates anybody else- love.  I had to convince her that I loved her.  I learned to do it in lots of ways- by meeting her needs, by being patient when she was being a bit of a troublemaker, by making her work to communicate and celebrating her accomplishments.  (As a side note- it is SO hard not to just anticipate needs with somebody who is nonverbal, but there is so much excitement when you can work your way towards communication.  If I thought she probably wanted to try drinking from a cup, I had to keep myself from just pouring her water and instead try to “listen” to how she was communicating.  I’d ask her questions and watch her eyes, her hands, the noises she made so she could tell me what she wanted.  It may sound cruel to not just do it right away, but she was so proud of herself when she was able to communicate and I wouldn’t rob her of that success for anything.)  When she was fully convinced that I loved her, I saw her change and blossom during the time we spent together.  She wanted to be with me, wanted to communicate with me, the troublemaking times became less frequent.  And she was a beautiful flower girl in my wedding.

My senior year of college I worked as a paraprofessional (teacher’s aid) in a resource classroom.  I had the privilege of working with a teacher who was amazing at motivating kids with love.  These were some tough kids with a wide range of educational, behavioral and emotional problems, but they adored their teacher.  She could get them to behave and respect her in ways few other people could.  And her love for them wasn’t an act.  I saw her agonize over those kids, the rough environments they came from and what their futures looked like.  She genuinely cared about them and it was infectious.  Not only did I love and care for those kids, but I saw them come to view themselves as lovable, too.

I saw that power of love proved over and over again during our group home days.  Kids who didn’t seem to care about anything or anybody, if you could just convince them they were loved, you could see them open up.  I could offer them rewards, but I knew the thing that really made them persevere through hard times was knowing that we loved them and they wanted to make us proud.  And I had to be careful not to use that knowledge to hurt them.  When you know how motivating and important love is, you have to be ever vigilant that you don’t become manipulative or withholding when things are dicey.

So I’d encourage you if you feel like you’re having a hard time motivating a child, think about the state of your relationship before you think about changing their behaviors.  I have a child who tests me over and over again and I have to be consistent to enforce the rules we’ve set to keep him healthy and safe.  I know he feels confident in my love and I am not at ALL saying kids who are causing trouble can just be fixed with more love.  I’m just saying (and reminding myself!) that sometimes when you’re dealing with a troubling behavior over and over again, you can start to let those expressions of love diminish.  It is hard to act in love when you’re frustrated, but sometimes by allowing our frustration to rule us our kids become more problematic as they sense our love is lessening.  In fact, you may see really great behavior from a child who isn’t sure about your relationship (this is the “honeymoon” period of a new foster child), but once she feels more secure she may try and test you.  It’s then that it’s SO important to reaffirm your love even as you are consistent with consequences.  You have to try and see the misbehavior as an indication that the child feels safe with you and is learning to trust.

There can also be a tendency for a outsider looking at a struggling family (especially a family with a difficult adopted or foster child) to think that there isn’t enough “love”.  That’s not what I’m saying.  Love itself is not a cure-all for the damage done by malnutrition, brain damage, abuse, etc.  It is an important and necessary tool for parents, but it can’t always bring the healing we wish it could.  It is a dangerous position for pre adoptive families to look at these kinds of situations and think they won’t have these problems because they will obviously love their kids more or better.  Without having the 24/7 family interactions with that child it is pretty impossible to know what is really going on and there are lots of us that have been humbled by a child who was more than we expected.

Bottom line- It’s important to find the good things to praise about our kids (even the hard kids during their hard times!) and remind them that we love them even when they’re naughty- just like God loves us.  When we’re able to convince them of how loved they are in spite of their problem behavior, it makes it that much easier for them to understand how a perfect and holy God could love them too.