51
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Accepted
How can we motivate a young adult without breaking the family?
Joe's excellent answer is sufficient in itself. I just wanted to add my experience as a parent (and maybe my experience with troubled kids.)
This is one of the hardest phases of parenting: the (nearly)...
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33
votes
How can we motivate a young adult without breaking the family?
What worked for a family member of one of my relatives was fairly straightforward: set rules or limits based on what works for the parents, and largely otherwise letting go. The parents spent years ...
- 63.5k
29
votes
Accepted
How to help my son improve without being discouraging?
The root cause of your child's frustration is expecting to make complex things perfectly without a long process of trial and error. I suggest that the best long-term solution is to offer the child a ...
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26
votes
Accepted
How to motivate my extremely lazy 12-year-old?
This sounds like a scarily accurate description of me when I was that age. So I'll give you my personal insight.
The lying is most likely a way to get you ,or anyone else, to leave him alone ,even if ...
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24
votes
Should I intentionally lose a game to make my daughter happy?
My experience with this (and a 7 and 5 year old child) is that you should not let the child win, but rather adjust the scenario so that the child can win. This ensures there is still a sense of ...
- 63.5k
13
votes
How can I motivate a 13-year-old girl to take better care of her appearance?
With that background, is getting her into some kind of therapy or at least in contact with a school counsellor an option? OR get someone to help the family in the household? Perhaps even both.
I am ...
- 3,099
13
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How can we motivate a young adult without breaking the family?
I'm not a parent, but once upon a time I was a somewhat similarly troubled young adult -- you mentioned she spends a significant amount of time reading, so maybe suggest she try her hand at writing? ...
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12
votes
How to motivate my extremely lazy 12-year-old?
Motivation and punishment do not mean the same things to you as they do for your teen.
Yes, you still will have expectations for getting chores and homework done, but perhaps your interest in them ...
- 17.4k
12
votes
When to give up learning an instrument with a 6-year-old?
I really feel like you are not looking at the situation objectively. You list 7 issues that present obstacles to your daughters success. You realize that it took a year and a half for her to learn the ...
- 1,489
11
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Should we make a 13-year-old without any interests/hobbies do something?
I noticed you only mentioned physical things. I am a big believer that kids need to move their bodies too, but I never had a hobby of any of those. If your interest is having her be more physically ...
- 7,350
11
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My 17-year-old daughter gets excellent grades but shows little interest in socializing or getting a job
All the things that you mention seem fairly minor. My husband picks off the pizza toppings that he doesn't like. There's nothing childish about not liking a particular food. Labeling this as "...
- 9,007
9
votes
Should I intentionally lose a game to make my daughter happy?
On average, kids need to win about 1 in 3 times in order to stay interested in a game. They must win fairly, not by default. It sounds like she is well on her way to becoming a ranked player - she is ...
- 3,697
8
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My kid slops through her chores or takes forever to do it. I've tried everything
Patience.
If you have patience, then your first idea should work, eventually. But it requires patience on your part to let her learn for herself.
She sounds a lot like my five year old, sometimes....
- 63.5k
8
votes
Accepted
How to foster t-ball enthusiasm in a five year old
I think you are overthinking this. Relax and allow yourself to have fun. If you would tell another player to hit hard, say the exact same thing to your own child. If you are not bothered by the ...
- 17.4k
8
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How can I motivate a 13-year-old girl to take better care of her appearance?
If she were a black lipstick girl, would you feel any different? How about tie-dyes with hemp jewelry? Barely legal slut outfits?
If you want her to focus more on her appearance, you're asking her to ...
- 2,187
8
votes
How to help my son improve without being discouraging?
I can try to make it less abstract by addressing the specific example that you've mentioned to try to help you move from "abstract" to "applied" in this instance. It could give you a good basis for ...
- 2,532
7
votes
How to motivate my extremely lazy 12-year-old?
Motivation comes from three things
Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose
Autonomy is the need to control your life. You have to have the power to choose what to do or how to do it. If there are chores, let him ...
- 491
7
votes
How to make my 18-year-old son get a job while in college?
My advice would be not to withhold the necessaries (like textbooks). If your goal is for him to get an education, you are shooting yourself in the foot by causing him to fail in college. Paying for ...
- 9,007
7
votes
Should we make a 13-year-old without any interests/hobbies do something?
When I was 13 I recall my socializing was arguable the most important part of my day after school. I spent most of my time on the phone chatting with friends or on the computer typing to other people. ...
- 275
7
votes
Accepted
What do I do to get my daughter interested in presenting her science experiments at the science competition(fair)?
I think your question can be generalised to something like the following:
I want my child to do something I think will benefit them, but they are resistant to it. If I don't push them to do it I'm ...
- 3,368
7
votes
How can we motivate a young adult without breaking the family?
This is based on my experience as a young adult whose life ground to a halt for a long, long time.
First of all, I believe you should act, immediately. Your daughter is not a functioning adult. And ...
- 649
7
votes
How to make 11 years old kid do homework
First: please always take comments about self-harm or suicide seriously. They may not be serious now, but that doesn't mean they won't eventually be. Look into resources for parents to understand ...
- 63.5k
6
votes
My 17-year-old daughter gets excellent grades but shows little interest in socializing or getting a job
These are two separate issues.
First of all, having only a few friends is fine. You worry if your kid has none, and that's not your kid's problem.
Being a picky eater is not a problem either. Some ...
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6
votes
Should I intentionally lose a game to make my daughter happy?
Tell her you miss playing Chess with her, which you obviously do, and offer to teach her some new strategies while you play. You might have to give up some of your key moves, but your games would take ...
- 1,489
6
votes
How to help my son improve without being discouraging?
Perhaps you could set up a play-date with a friend or friends of a similar age and they could all paint miniatures? (In addition to snacks, TV or whatever is fun at that age group) Even if his ...
- 9,007
6
votes
Force 9-year old to finish what he started?
My take is that your goal as a parent isn't to ensure that your child acquires any particular skill, or actually finishes tasks like this. It's to help them find what they actually like doing, and ...
- 1,988
5
votes
How to foster t-ball enthusiasm in a five year old
When I first read the title of this post, my immediate thought was "You can't. T-ball is boring!"
When studying early childhood education, there is an emphasis on understanding the attention span ...
- 1,526
5
votes
My 17-year-old daughter gets excellent grades but shows little interest in socializing or getting a job
Let's do the easy one first.
I... see signs of delayed development in her.
Being particular about food isn't a cognitive problem. There is a developmental stage where most kids become picky, but ...
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5
votes
How to encourage my 5-year-daughter to become a Medical Doctor?
You've said it yourself: She's five. At this stage in her life, it's pretty much pointless to try and ground her in a specific profession. IMO, you should instead focus on exposing her to a wide ...
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