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What's Going On In There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life 
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Motivating Children to Achieve - Practical MethodsBy Andrew Loh Teaching motivation to your children could be a challenging act, because you are trying to transform your children's mind towards acquiring a new skill or knowledge. Teaching motivation is playing with your children's mind and soul. With teaching achievement motivation exercises, you will be empowering your children to get better things in life or achieve better goals. In many cases, parents may find it very difficult to make their children learn motivational techniques, because understanding their minds is always difficult. However, you can still do that by using an array of specialized techniques. Children may fail to get good grades or perform better in their classrooms due to a number of reasons. However, these causes or reasons always revolve around two motivational bases. In classrooms, children may develop a desire to succeed just because of two reasons:
Hence, children put their best efforts to develop an emphasis on getting extrinsic rewards. However, this attitude could be a little negative, as they want to show someone that they are capable; in fact, children may never develop an intrinsic motivation, because of these external rewards. On the flipside, most children tend to develop an external motivation, either from their teachers, peers or parents which could be detrimental in the end. When children work for external rewards, the experience could be temporary and short lived. On the other hand, intrinsic or internal motivation is very difficult to teach, because it is internal and invisible. It is more of a perception than reality. Schools always lay an emphasis on their students achieving better marks and grades, which unduly place a stress on them to work on their external motivation. External motivation in children could have a number of disadvantages like:
On the other hand, teaching children internal motivation can help them realize that it is very crucial for achieving external success. Pre- and primary- schools are the times, when your children develop a number of ideas about their school and their programs. This is the time when you should try to teach them the importance of internal motivation, which urges them to achieve tangible things in their classrooms and out of it. Educational experts and psychologists agree that young children also need external motivation in equal measures to develop fine tuned internal motivation. This means that both parents and teachers should attempt to develop the habit of enhancing internal motivation by using the principles of 6 P's. These principles are as follows: Praise: More often praising from parents and teachers could be overwhelming and overpowering. What your children need is sincere praising that helps them focus on putting an additional effort. Never ever, over do this part, as it could be counter-productive. Power: Give an opportunity to your children to make their own choices. This simple gesture could provide them a sense of autonomy and independence. When you give those options and enough freedom, they will be motivation-driven persons, who will lean on the positive side of learning. Projects: Projects and assignments could be amazing tools that can help enhance increased levels of internal motivation. Good projects and assignments can help your children develop inquisitiveness and curiosity which are very good for increasing motivational levels. People: Make sure that you develop personal relationship with your children. Urge them to develop personal relationship with their teachers and peers as well. Prizes and rewards: Prizes and rewards are the external tools to develop external motivation. However, when used wisely, they can be very effective in developing internal motivation. Never ever, announce your rewards to cajole children to finish their work. Do not announce your rewards before your children finish their work. Prestige: Children, who develop intrinsic motivation, always demand prestige and recognition. Provide enough opportunities to showcase your children's talent and skills in front of others. Additional tips to motivate your children to achieve:
The most visible indicator of enhancing achievement motivation level is the emotion. When your children are motivated within their mind and soul, they tend to show a positive display of emotion. When your children develop better achievement levels, they also show full satisfaction with their achievements which eventually leads to better learning retention. 
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