Don’t Confuse Motivation with Morality
My son rarely does school work without support. That’s not a moral failing.
What’s one of the worst parenting days of the year?
If you are a parent of a child on an Individualized Learning Plan, or IEP, that annual IEP meeting likely ranks near the top (or rather, bottom). It’s the opportunity to sit around the table (virtually in 2021) and have a whole team of people remind you of all your child’s struggles that a typical person takes for granted.
Fortunately for us, we’ve gone through this rodeo several times, and we have a pretty good team, so this year wasn’t the nightmare that we feared.
Unfortunately, we still had an unpleasant surprise.
“I’ll give him an assignment, walk away, and when I check on him in 10 minutes he hasn’t even started it,” my son’s Social Studies teacher rushed through in exasperation, running late for her next meeting, “It’s like he has no motivation at all. I can’t do anything with that.”
This was followed by a beat of silence as the teacher logged off.
Had this been a cartoon, a volcano would have erupted from the top of my wife’s head. Instead, she flatly stated, “Let’s not confuse his lack of motivation with some moral failing.”
The rest of the team rushed to agreement. Our son was moved out of that class later that week.
Let’s Not Confuse Our Priorities With The Common Good
Have you ever driven by a restaurant you no longer frequent and wonder how it can still be in business? Or been surprised when your favorite show in the world is canceled after only a season, while some terrible sitcom on CBS had enough seasons that it could get a driver’s license?
We all have our own set of priorities and desires, and it’s easy to be shocked when someone else fundamentally disagrees with things we deem important.
This can be especially tricky when it comes to our own children. Of course we want wants best for them. So we try to bundle up our successes and failures and hoist that knowledge onto them.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. But sometimes it just doesn’t work.
When I was school-aged, my parents never had to check to make sure my homework was done. I’d get it done. That was important to me.
It made me very popular with my teachers. I even had one teacher ask if I could get one of my siblings to me more like me.
But that was MY internal drive. Those were my priorities. It’s not like my parents taught my siblings a different set of values. I just had something different click in my brain that motivated me in that particular area.
But at 37 years old, I’ve discovered something really, really important: my motivation is not my kids’ motivation.
Furthermore, it turns out that school work motivation has not been some silver bullet to propel me to the top of the working world. It turns out there are other areas where I’m not as motivated that would serve me better in the real world.
Better to Find Areas of Success Than Focus On Failures
My son doesn’t lack motivation, he just doesn’t like Social Studies.
The following week, I saw him sit silently for nearly an hour as a former Army engineer explain electronics to a class of 20 boys. During the appropriate time, he asked smart follow up questions, sincerely trying to learn more.
I’ve seen him sit and code in Scratch or Roblox for hours, something that would drive me mad after about 10 minutes.
He comes home raving about the wonders of his robotics class nearly every day.
So to that Social Studies teacher, no, he doesn’t lack motivation. He just doesn’t like what you’re teaching.
As long as the school focuses on his strengths and not harp on his struggles, he might legitimately have a chance to be successful.
If, however, we equate his lack of interest in Social Studies as evidence that he has some moral failing, eventually he’ll internalize that. Failure in other areas is much more likely to follow.
To add insult to injury, it’s unlikely he’ll even do any better in Social Studies.
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