The 5 P's of Motivation
While embracing the joys of the New Year, many families take this opportunity to set goals or New Year resolutions. Goal setting is an evaluation of the current achievement and making action plans in bringing oneself to the next level. After the excitement of setting an inspirational goal, what comes next? Children might fall back to the usual routine and lose interest in pursuing their goal. Richard Lavoie outlined Five P’s of Motivation in his book “The Motivation Breakthrough” as a guideline to different types and ways of motivating our children. The Fives P’s of Motivation are Project, Praise, Prizes, Prestige and Power. There are overlaps between the five categories and children often tune into more than one of the motivating strategies depending on the situation, difficulties of the task and the other various factors.
Project: For children who are inquisitive and autonomous, we can motivate them by recognizing, reinforcing and stimulating the child’s natural curiosity and provide them with creative outlets and opportunities to explore.
Praise (Encouragement): For children who are status-driven, recognition-driven and affiliation-driven, we can motivate them by providing encouragement that focus on effort and improvement, not be an assessment of a finished product.
Prize: For children who are status-driven, recognition-driven, affiliation-driven and power driven, we can motivate them by using a reward system at home. A positive, effective reward is one that reflects the parents’ recognition and appreciation of the child’s efforts and accomplishments. Three types of basic rewards that can be used in order to recognize and sustain a child’s effort are social reward (parental attention, verbal reinforcement, etc.), material reward (prizes, money, etc.) and privilege reward (sleepover, a trip to an amusement park, etc.).
Prestige: For children who are autonomous, status-driven and power-driven. The child values reward, awards, certificates, and is greatly motivated by public recognition of their successes. A way to motivate them is to celebrate their specific area of skills, affinity and strengths. They will come to realize that they have significant power and potency in some areas of their development that can and should be recognized and rejoiced over.
Power: For children who are power-driven and autonomous. We can motivate them by providing encouragement, giving them responsibility and communicating a promise. For example, “Bill, you can go to the pool as soon as your room is clean.” The message here communicates a promise and provides Bill with significant power. He and his behavior will determine whether or not he goes to the pool.
While embracing the joys of the New Year, many families take this opportunity to set goals or New Year resolutions. Goal setting is an evaluation of the current achievement and making action plans in bringing oneself to the next level. After the excitement of setting an inspirational goal, what comes next? Children might fall back to the usual routine and lose interest in pursuing their goal. Richard Lavoie outlined Five P’s of Motivation in his book “The Motivation Breakthrough” as a guideline to different types and ways of motivating our children. The Fives P’s of Motivation are Project, Praise, Prizes, Prestige and Power. There are overlaps between the five categories and children often tune into more than one of the motivating strategies depending on the situation, difficulties of the task and the other various factors.
Project: For children who are inquisitive and autonomous, we can motivate them by recognizing, reinforcing and stimulating the child’s natural curiosity and provide them with creative outlets and opportunities to explore.
Praise (Encouragement): For children who are status-driven, recognition-driven and affiliation-driven, we can motivate them by providing encouragement that focus on effort and improvement, not be an assessment of a finished product.
Prize: For children who are status-driven, recognition-driven, affiliation-driven and power driven, we can motivate them by using a reward system at home. A positive, effective reward is one that reflects the parents’ recognition and appreciation of the child’s efforts and accomplishments. Three types of basic rewards that can be used in order to recognize and sustain a child’s effort are social reward (parental attention, verbal reinforcement, etc.), material reward (prizes, money, etc.) and privilege reward (sleepover, a trip to an amusement park, etc.).
Prestige: For children who are autonomous, status-driven and power-driven. The child values reward, awards, certificates, and is greatly motivated by public recognition of their successes. A way to motivate them is to celebrate their specific area of skills, affinity and strengths. They will come to realize that they have significant power and potency in some areas of their development that can and should be recognized and rejoiced over.
Power: For children who are power-driven and autonomous. We can motivate them by providing encouragement, giving them responsibility and communicating a promise. For example, “Bill, you can go to the pool as soon as your room is clean.” The message here communicates a promise and provides Bill with significant power. He and his behavior will determine whether or not he goes to the pool.