Andrew Fuller: How to increase motivation and confidence in children (Part 1)

Twenty years ago, our understanding of motivation was pretty straightforward. People had drives and needs and conducted cost benefit analyses and depending on the balance sheet either were motivated or lay around doing as little as possible.

Related to this was the idea of ‘flow’, identified by the wonderfully named, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, where people become absorbed in an effortless Zen-like zone.

This led to the idea of pep talks, goal setting or searching for activities that created flow. You may have been on the receiving end of one of these pep talks from your own parents. The problem was they worked only part of the time. Children don’t behave like budding economists and states of Zen-like flow are hard to regularly create.

More recently we identified the missing ingredient in motivation –the neurochemical, dopamine.

Parents and young people undertake one of the most ambitious missions known to humanity. People find it hard to push themselves to do difficult things and find it even harder to continually push themselves to improve over time.

Gaining a useful understanding of how brains learn and how to increase dopamine and motivation, is among the most useful pieces of knowledge parents can have.

Neuropsychological research has regularly shown that higher levels of dopamine are related to motivation. Essentially there are two aspects of the dopamine circuit.

1. The Seeking system

Dopamine is increased when we anticipate good things and seek out something new. People are on the hunt for new stuff all the time. Social media is a great example of this. It provides new ideas and also new social approval. It is also why we are fascinated by gossip and the news.

Dopamine is also the neurochemical of desire. Desire starts to exist when we believe that by doing something will result in pleasure, fulfillment, or satisfaction.

Dopamine is more about wanting than having whereas serotonin is more about having than wanting. When we feel excited or anticipate a good event, dopamine increases 30 – 40 times.

2. Reward system

Dopamine also increases when we experience little ‘wins’, when tasks are completed, when we can tick things off a check list or to-do list, or when personal goals are achieved.

Much of your ancestors’ exploration was driven by dopamine. For example, ‘let’s go and check out what’s happening over there’ and ’those people over there, look interesting’.

Neuro-craving is when your brain desires an outcome and when it is finally achieved, your brain gives you a ‘hit’ of dopamine. One example is cleverly arranged into music. Great songs create a tension in the listener that is resolved when a missing chord or note is sounded. The listener gets a hit of dopamine and wants to hear the song again.

You can increase dopamine through small changes in what you and your child do, with rapid and long-lasting results. Knowing how to leverage dopamine creates a substantial  40 per cent advantage in motivation.

The first way to develop a dopamine ‘want’ is to identify the ‘edge’, the new aspect of whatever you are learning or doing. If you can find something that intrigues your child, you’ve already increased their levels of motivation. Just thinking about what we want increases motivation by 50 per cent. Writing down our goals increases it even more.

Computer games are exquisitely designed to keep players entranced and on a dopamine edge. However, after played for an extended period, most gamers are washed out. Learn to spike dopamine by making the effort and the progress your child makes towards an outcome into a challenge. Taking on challenges where your child has a likelihood of success builds motivation. This requires opting in rather than opting out. Focusing on the little goals along the way keeps dopamine flowing.

With dopamine there are no peaks without troughs. Many athletes have a glum period after winning a championship and musicians often find the time that they get home after a successful tour to be difficult.

If we tap into a reliable source of dopamine we tend to become obsessed with it. Look at the way people use phones, social media and computer games. We all need to be careful to vary our sources of dopamine because tapping into the same source repeatedly becomes a habit over time and risks turning into a raging addiction.

Having high levels of dopamine feels great but it also resets our baseline for what we consider to be fun and pleasurable. Help your child to appreciate the small things in life as well as the big wins.

If we seek out dopamine at high levels too much, we invite gloomy despondency into our lives.

The great ‘high’ of dopamine is that we feel pumped but when the dopamine lessens or the source becomes unavailable for a time, we slump and find life dull and meaningless.

The Greek poet Hesiod was on to this when he suggested, ‘all things in moderation’.

A subtle but nasty downside of dopamine is that for every bit of dopamine that’s increased, there’s a crash associated when prolactin is released in your brain (yes, this is the same hormone that stimulates milk production during breast feeding). Prolactin is behind the feeling of letdowns after a big goal has been achieved. Celebrate your child’s wins and victories briefly and then use that energy to shift to working towards the next step.

A full discussion of this takes an hour to present but let’s cover some of the basics.

Parents can regulate dopamine schedules to optimise engagement, motivation and learning.

This doesn’t involve convincing, persuading, or cajoling children to be motivated or providing hearty pep talks.

Regulating dopamine in families involves creating the optimal conditions for dopamine to rise and fall over a day.

In the morning make your home brightly lit. Put music on if you want. If you can, eat breakfast outdoors if you have a back veranda or patio or in a sunny room.

First thing in the morning is rarely the best time for a long discussion by parents about progress at school as some children and almost all teens will be grumpy and incommunicative.

Try to minimise screen time early on (I know this is hard) otherwise they ‘zombie- out.’

Instead ritualise the start of the day with one of two options:

1.If they seem really sluggish, solo activities for the first 5 to 10 minutes such as having them create a list of activities to do or foods to eat later in the day. You may need to prompt and guide some children.

2. If they seem more switched on, begin with activities where everyone is involved and no one gets anything wrong. Funny quizzes, jokes, sharing weird facts or playing 20 questions over breakfast can help.

You can feel when children’s dopamine declines, the energy leaves the room.

Let your children know that you think they are smart and as a member of a clever switched-on family who know how to have fun, they are going to get even smarter.

Incorporating some physical movements especially rhythmic movements (walking, singing, dancing, shooting goals in basketball) increases dopamine.

Each day has a rhythm with predictable peaks and troughs of energy, learning and dopamine. Scheduling can capitalise on this to maximise learning outcomes and harmony in your home.

Copyright Andrew Fuller

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More tips about how to maximise your success can be found at:

Andrew’s websites

www.andrewfuller.com.au
www.mylearningstrengths.com  (45,000 young people in the past year discovered their learning strengths and found how to increase success and motivation).

Books for parents

Tricky Conversations
Tricky Teens and Emerging Adults: A survival guide for parents 
Unlocking Your Child’s Genius: How to discover and encourage your child’s natural talents 

Books for teachers

Guerilla Tactics for Teachers: The Essential Classroom Management Guide 
Work Smarter, Not Harder: Study skills for students who dislike homework
Tricky Conversations: How to have less conflict and more peace in your life
Neurodevelopmental Differentiation: Optimising Brain Systems to Maximise Learning

Andrew is a clinical psychologist and family therapist, author and speaker, and a regular contributor to The Parents Website.