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  Motivate

"We are all afraid of failing – of our children not being good enough and of not being good enough parents." Judith A. Graham, Human Development Specialist, University of Maine.

MOTIVATE includes the parenting practices which promote intellectual development in children. Parents who take their responsibility as their children’s teacher seriously, and who perform their teaching functions effectively and sensitively throughout their children’s lives, are more likely than other parents to have children who become confident and skilled learners and who attain high levels of educational achievement.

The MOTIVATE cluster of skills is closely related to Guide and Nurture. Parents who are the most successful motivators lovingly nurture and guide their children respectfully and sensitively. The parenting practices promoted in the MOTIVATE cluster may be especially responsive to parent education. Parents can learn how to facilitate learning effectively.

Critical MOTIVATE Practices

Teach children about themselves, others, and the world around them. Stimulate curiosity, imagination, and the search for knowledge. Create beneficial learning conditions. Help children process and manage information.

Examples of Specific Program Objectives for MOTIVATE

The following parent behaviors serve as examples of more specific outcome objectives based on the critical practices for MOTIVATE:

Identify why they are the first and potentially the most important teachers for their children. Establish a home environment conducive to learning. Help their children acquire knowledge and skills they need to become responsible, contributing young people and adults. Stimulate their children’s curiosity and desire to learn. Increase their children’s confidence as learners. Promote their children’s preparation for success in school. More accurately identify their children’s learning patterns and learning needs. Engage their children in more language-rich activities. Increase the number of appropriate learning experiences they provide for their children. Use more encouraging and supportive responses to their children’s learning efforts. Establish more realistic, achievable homework and study rules. Play more learning games with infants and preschoolers. Increase interest in, and knowledge of, their children’s schools and school achievement. Interact more effectively with their children’s schools and teachers.

What We Know About MOTIVATE

Children need opportunities to learn. Infants, preschoolers,, and school-age children are more likely to become skilled and motivated learners if their parents provide them with opportunities for a variety of experiences which stimulate sensory, physical, and intellectual learning (Caldwell & Bradley, 1979; Honig, 1979).

In their summary of the research, Amato and Ochiltree (1986) found child competence to be associated with a variety of parental behaviors. Able parents encourage their children to explore and interact with the environment. They give their children responsive and realistic feedback. They are warm and supportive. They have high expectations for their children and assist with schoolwork. They also take an active problem-solving approach to resolving conflict and create an environment that is relatively free of overt conflict between family members.

Steinberg, Elmen, and Mounts (1989) found that the three aspects of authoritative parenting – acceptance, psychological autonomy, and behavioral control – may enhance an adolescent’s work orientation and ultimately school success. In his review of the research, Powell (1991) pointed out that the most beneficial teaching strategies stimulate the child’s own thinking and encourage active, verbal engagement of a task.

In a study of parent beliefs about their children’s academic experience, Powell and Peet (1992) found that a majority of parents are worried about their child’s future, and approximately one-third do not expect their child will attain what the parent considers to be an ideal position for the child. They also found that a parent’s contributions to children’s learning are most effective when incorporated into daily family routines.

Learning is enhanced by responsiveness. Teaching is most effective if provided by parents/caregivers who are aware of and responsive to their children’s specific learning patterns, needs, and capabilities. Controlling and restrictive parents undermine children’s intellectual development by restricting children from freely exploring their environment (Clarke-Stewart, 1973; Dornbush, Ritter, Leiderman, Roberts, & Fraleigh, 1987; Gottfried, 1983; Jennings & Conners, 1989; Ramey & Finkelstein, 1978; Sparling, 1980).

Language and literacy skills are probably the most important predictors of children’s educational success. Children whose parents have promoted their language and literacy throughout preschool and early school years are most likely to achieve in school and beyond (Becker, 1985; Clarke-Stewart, 1977; Greaney, 1986; Hess & Holloway, 1984; Honig, 1982; Laosa, 1982; Tizard & Hughes, 1984.).

Children who have access to reading and writing materials, who have parents who read frequently to them and take them to the library have been found to be more skilled readers than children who do not experience these encouragements (Powell, 1991).

Home-school collaboration is critical. When parents collaborate with their children’s teachers, children are more likely to adjust to and succeed in school (Cotton & Savard, 1982; ERIC Clearinghouse, 1985; Hamilton & Cochran, 1988; Rodick & Henggeler, 1980; Schmitt, 1986).

Reasonable and positive expectations build a foundation for success. Children are more likely to be achieving learners if their parents have high but reasonable learning experiences for them (Coopersmith, 1967; Phillips, 1987; Steinberg et al., 1989). "Hothousing," exerting inappropriate levels of achievement pressure on young children, creates an artificial environment and is likely to be counterproductive (Sigel, 1982).

Parents have a role as interpreters of objective confidence feedback for their children. Children incorporate their parents’ impressions of their capabilities into their own self-appraisal of their academic competence. Parents’ opinions are even more important than actual records of achievement (Phillips, 1987).

References

Amato, P. R., & Ochiltree, G. (1986). Family resources and the development of child competency. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 48, 47-56.

Becker, R. M. (1985). Parent involvement and reading achievement: A review of research and implications for practice. Childhood Education, 44-50.

Caldwell, B. M., & Bradley, R. H. (1979 ). Home observation for the measurement of the environment. Little Rock, AR: University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Clarke-Stewart, K. A. (1973). Interactions between mothers and their young children: Characteristics and consequences. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 38(153), 6-7.

Clarke-Stewart, K. A. (1977). Childcare in the family: A review of research and some propositions for policy. New York: Academic Press.

Cotton, K., & Savard, W. (1982). Parent involvement in instruction, K-12: Research synthesis: ERIC Reports. St. Ann, MO: CEMREL Inc.

Coopersmith, S. (1967). The antecedents of self-esteem. San Francisco/London: Freeman and Company.

Dornbusch, S. M., Ritter, P. L., Leiderman, P. H., Roberts, D. F., & Fraleigh, M. J. (1987). The relation of parenting style to adolescent school performance. Child Development, 58¸1244-1257.

ERIC Clearinghouse in Urban Education (1985). ERIC/CUE Digest No. 27. New York: Columbia University.

Gottfried, A. E. (1983). Intrinsic motivation in young children. Young Children, 39, 64-72.

Greaney, V. (1986). Parental influences on reading. The Reading Teacher, 39, 813-818.

Hamilton, M. A., & Cochran, M. (1988). Parents, teachers, and community: Building partnerships for the child. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Department of Human Development and Family Studies.

Hess, R. D., & Holloway, S. D. (1984). Family and school as educational institutions. In R. D. Parke (Ed.), The family. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Honig, A. S. (1979). A review of recent research. The American Montessori Society Bulletin, 17, 3-4.

Honig, A. S. (1982). Infant-mother communication. Young Children, 37, 352-362.

Jennings, K. D., & Conners, R. E. (1989). Mothers’ interactional style and children’s competence at three years. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 12(2), 155-175.

Laosa, L. M. (1982). Families as facilitators of children: Intellectual development at three years of age: A causal analysis. In L. M. Laos & I. E. Sigel (Eds.), Families as learning environments for children (pp. 1-45). New York: Plenum Press.

Phillips, D. A. (1987). Socialization of perceived academic competence among highly competent children. Child Development, 58, 1308-1320.

Powell, D. R. (1991). Strengthening parental contributions to school readiness and early school learning. Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education.

Powell, D. R., & Peet, S. H. (1992). Making it in today’s world: Options for strengthening parents’ contributions to children’s learning. Indianapolis, IN: The Lilly Foundation, Inc. of Indianapolis.

Ramey, C. T., & Finkelstein, N. W. (1978). Contingent stimulation and infant competence. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 3(2), 89-96.

Rodick, J., & Henggeler, S. (1980). The short-term amelioration of academic and motivational deficiencies among low-achieving, intercity adolescents. Child Development, 51, 126-132.

Schmitt, D. (1986). Parents and schools as partners in preschool education. Educational Leadership, November, 40-41.

Sigel, I. E. (1982). Does hothousing rob children of their childhood? Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 2, 211-225.

Sparling, J. (Ed.). (1980). Information needs of parents with young children. Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina.

Steinberg, L., Elmen, J. D., & Mounts, N. S. (1989). Authoritative parenting, psychosocial maturity, and academic success among adolescents. Child Development,, 60, 1424-1436.

Tizard, B., & Hughes, M. (1984). Young children learning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

This material is reproduced with permission. Smith, C. A., Cudaback, D., Goddard, H. W., & Myers-Walls, J. A. (1994). National Extension Parent Education Model. Manhattan, KS: Kansas Cooperative Extension System.

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