Is Your Daughter Lacking Motivation?

Are you finding that your daughter seems to be more motivated to accumulate likes and retweets on social media than A’s on their report card?

Sounds like the typical teen, right?

This behavior is widespread among teens. The period of adolescence is full of change, evolution, and self-discovery. It is natural for adolescents to be a little reluctant to muster the motivation to adjust to a new and challenging learning environment.

So, how do you motivate your daughter to do what you want them to do?

How do you get your daughter to be self-motivated and to think of their future?

You need to understand why your daughter is lacking motivation and how you can play a more active role in preventing this occurrence.

Common Causes of Decreased Motivation

The change could be what is depleting your child’s motivation. The change in the social scene around middle school and especially high school is where adolescents start worrying about their social status. They wish to fit into an environment with definite cliques and hierarchies. It is common for kids who do well in school to become isolated and labeled “nerd.” During this time in their lives, young people don’t wish to be different. This tendency may be a reason why they begin to withdraw from academics.

Difficulty in the school’s curriculum is another cause of why teens may underperform in the classroom. When the workload increases, as well as the workload’s stress, your daughter, could be so overwhelmed that he or she gives up. Your child may feel that they can’t meet expectations, so they cease trying. This occurrence is very prevalent among teens who have skill deficits due to learning or language deficiencies. On the other hand, the school’s curriculum and course load could prove not difficult enough to keep your student engaged. This pattern is especially common among gifted teens who would rather spend their time doing their learning of math, science, reading, and history instead of focusing on their school work. An adolescent could also be gifted in one specific subject, and thus they choose to spend their time on that one topic rather than the other subjects in their course load.

How to Motivate Your Teen Daughter

One standard method of motivation is external motivation. This area is where a parent could use incentives to make their child do what they want. This method could be in the form of rewards, such as eating out when your student receives good grades, or perhaps increasing your adolescent’s allowance when he or she is more helpful around the house. These can be effective methods of persuading your student to increase productivity, but the drawback is that once the rewards are removed, the proactive behavior may also dissipate.

Another incentive is to penalize or punish, your teen for engaging in unwanted behaviors, such as taking away electronics with the arrival of failing grades, or grounding him or her for skipping class. This strategy could improve your daughter’s performance, but it could also cause you to ignore the issue behind the cause of the failing grades and lack of desire to attend class. Keep in mind that incentives tend to be more effective in younger adolescents versus high school students. The most powerful form of motivation is the internal motivation that occurs when the teen is motivated to accomplish tasks due to their ambition.

How do you persuade your teen daughter to share your motivations?

The two main factors that contribute to internal motivation are related to these questions: 

1. What are my future goals and plans?
2. How do certain factors contribute to my future goals and plans?

These factors require being able to visualize goals and understand the value of what is necessary to obtain said goals. This principle can be applied to either short-term and long-term goals. Perhaps you wish for your teen to complete more chores around the house. In this case, you need to communicate to your child the ultimate reason and purpose of a clean house and what must be done to achieve this goal, instead of saying, “Because I told you so,” which doesn’t provide a rationale for the request.

A long-term goal of your teenager could be to become an architect after college. In this case, take your student to a college that has a recognized program in architecture and discuss the academic standards that need to be accomplished to gain admission to the program. Your child may begin taking school work and remedial homework assignments more seriously if they understand the correlation between good grades and achieving the desired career. Adolescents need to understand the value of their actions. They need to understand the purpose of the requests, and the consequences of not completing the task.

Take Action Now

It is reasonable to let your adolescent take more responsibility for his or her education as maturity evolves, but if an issue in academic focus lingers, you may need to start making a more active role in your child’s education. Be aware of the assignments and projects assigned to your student. If the workload is overwhelming, help your teen find a suitable place to begin the work and then break up the work into a manageable section. This method will make the task seem more achievable. The best resource at your adolescent’s school is the teacher. Ask the teacher what the issues are with your student and the potential ways to address them. Taking an active role in your child’s education will ensure that the necessary coursework and learning are accomplished.

Helping Teens Find Motivation at
Our Residential Treatment Center for Teens

Our residential treatment center for teens academic program is designed to assist teen girls who are in need of grade repair and credit recovery. Typically, girls who struggle with emotional and behavioral issues also experience academic and educational deficiencies that compound an already difficult situation. Sometimes the “acting out behavior” of a struggling girl is directly related to ongoing and prolonged academic problems. Therefore, we integrate our therapeutic approach with an outstanding academic program to help young ladies restore their lives to wholeness, both emotionally and academically.

1. Are you experiencing family conflict in the home due to your daughter’s academic problems?
2. Has your daughter recently changed to a negative peer group?
3. Is she isolating herself from the family and focusing an excessive amount of time on the computer or phone (social media)?
4. Most importantly, is she struggling or failing academically?
5. Are there academic issues that are causing low self-esteem, depression, or anxiety?
6. Is your struggling daughter bright, but underachieving?
7. Has there been experimentation or life-controlling issues?

We have an integrated therapeutic and academic restoration program that really works. We change lives through academic and educational restoration.

At our residential treatment center for teens in Arizona, first and foremost is your daughter’s emotional safety. Our academic programs are designed to support students therapeutically by providing a safe learning environment. In a safe setting, girls tend to excel academically (as long as the distractions are reduced). With academic success comes an improvement in their self-esteem, self-image, and self-worth.

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To find out more about Re-Creation Retreat or to begin enrollment, please complete our Inquiry Form.

We look forward to talking to you about how we can help you, your daughter, and your whole family. Our heart’s desire goes beyond just impacting your daughter but the restoration of the entire family.