Fostering Intrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic motivation is an important trait to have in life. It is the personal desire to do things and propels a person in their life choices and towards their goals.
This is an area that I would like to learn more about myself in order to assist children to develop their dreams and realise them.

Early childhood is a key time for developing this trait. Educators have an important role in influencing children in this way, though it is not always easy to know how. Here are some suggestions based on current research:

Let the child make as many decisions for themselves as possible and allow the child to choose their own play activities. This may influence a child's right to self determine their activity and therefore motivation.

Reinforce effort that a child makes rather than the finished product. The process is the most important! This can be enforced with comments such as "you are working so hard on that", "you chose to finish that task" rather than "that is a beautiful picture."

"Point of passion" is a memory of a particular event that sparked an interest that continued into later years. These moments often occur in preschool years and are supported by a key adult in the child's life. For example, the young Eric Carle's teacher asked his parents to come in the classroom to view some of their child's art work. He had told the teacher that he liked art and she saw that he had talent, so asked the parents to "nurture the talent and respect it." His parents went on to do so and Eric remembers this experience as the "door" to his future career in writing children's books. Perhaps you remember one of these moments in your own life.

Relatedness (being close to someone) is important for influencing intrinsic motivation. This can be done by having an empathetic relationship with the child at their pace by respecting the child's boundaries and affirms the child's right to self determine. It has also been found that having many influential adults in a child's life act as anchors for support in the child's areas of interest. Parents and grandparents often play a major role and this relationship can be encouraged by teachers and ECEs by initiating communication about this, just as Eric Carle's teacher did.

It is important the child engages with the adult about the importance of activities. The adult may say "what you are doing is very important." They may go on to explain.

All of these ideas contribute to a child's motivation and choices in their present and future lives. It is important that ECEs, teachers, family members, and influential adults take note of the child's interests and help them delve into them with an inquisitive mind, especially in the preschool years. This could shape their direction in life and their ability to realise their goals.

Little Artists

Here's a great idea from Pinterest!

Let children choose a piece of a magazine cut-out to paste on paper and imagine the rest from there. National Geographic have great animal pictures to use :) You could even photocopy the picture or print it so you aren't ruining the magazine.

The art activity was originally intended to explore Romare Bearden's unique style of paper cut-outs.

Power of Parents

Parents have such a big influence on their children.

Recently I had a parent in my program concerned about her son's behaviour at school and childcare. He had been disrespecting authority figures (ie. not listening to his teachers) and she wanted him to be more accountable for his actions.

In order to see this improve, everyday at pick-up time, she brought him over to me and we talked about his listening for the day. I gave specific examples. Things I was happy to see and things where he needed to make better choices.

His mom would give feedback about what she was hearing and would talk about her feelings and expectations to her son and I. It was evident from his face that he really cared about what she said.

During program, I would give direction, for example, it is time to go inside. If he did not start moving, I would say "you are not listening to me. This is not okay." If he started moving then, I would say "good listening." If he did not listen I would say "I am going to need to talk to your mom about this." Of course, I would tell her either way if he listened or not, but I was reminding him what would happen at the end of the day when she came to pick him up.

After about 3 or 4 weeks, he consistently had 'good listening days' and his mom was pleased. She said to me after about a week of these good days, that she felt something had been accomplished. That her son was being more accountable for his actions and showing more respect. I was pleased with his improvements as well. Now we communicate every few days about his behaviours or things that happen in the classroom, rather than everyday.

I think this was a great collaboration with a parent in the program. The child was able to get feedback from both of us on a daily basis and his mom's feelings of pride or disappointment greatly affected him .

The more communication between parents and caregivers that happens, the better, as it can have great benefit on the child and gives more for the family to talk about at home. It is great that this can happen in an after-school program or childcare. Teachers and parents may not have as much time to talk.

At our childcare, we are encouraged to talk to the parents daily. At least to say hello, sometimes to say what a child enjoyed doing that day, always any First aid or Notice of Inappropriate Behaviour forms, and on occasion depending whether the child needs extra support in the program, socially or otherwise.We are encouraged to ask if the behaviours continue at home, and what the parents do about it. As well as if they have any concerns about how their children are getting along with others. We form a collaboration and direct parents to resources in the community whenever possible.

Jane of all Careers

I have been thinking of how I will be graduating from ECE this year, and then I will not have any more school. I love school. To be in it this long, you pretty much have to. But I can't help craving more school!
Then again, I can finally have a full-time job! And really, I am blessed in the career I have chosen to be able to explore and learn continuously. So, I actually will still be in school. Just this time, I get to be the educator.

It is good for me to have many jobs at once for the moment. It gives me the variety of experiences that I crave. I have always wanted to tweek my skills in many areas at once. Kind of have many different jobs. But some of them, just for fun.

One of these careers I have always wanted was to be a photo journalist. I realised recently that I get to be one in the classroom. I take photos of the children's work in progress and put together a written documentation for the parents. If I wanted, in my future, I could make a book like this. And then I would be realising my desire to be an author as well!

I have always felt myself drawn to work in an orphanage. I did this a couple of years ago and I kind of think one day, in my soon to be retired years, I will start an orphanage in a different country and bring in everything I know about child care. For that I also chose the right career. I could even work in Canada with an adoption agency with my ECE.

May will be five years since I graduated from my BSc. It is making me think about my 'science career' and what that has looked like/will look like. At the moment I am reading a biography of Louis Agassiz, who is one of the key developers of science. He studied Marine Biology, which is what I started out in at the U of G. It is making me feel nostalgic and making me want to be a researcher. Someone who studies nature. He studied Jellyfish. In my school-age room, we had a giant glass container so we made our own pet Jellyfish out of a cut up plastic bag. My coworker wrote out a web of ideas we could explore wince they were quite excited about it and had many questions. One of the other teacher came into our class as we had just made him so brought us a book on Jellyfish from the library. It was our pet all of last week until some of the children cleaned it's container and the Jellyfish broke.

What I wanted to say is that I can help the children learn to be scientists. It can be a part of my career. Perhaps in a different light than I had originally intended, but one where I can research with the children and help them find answers to their questions.

So, being an Early Childhood Educator is the best job ever. I get to be a scientist, an artist, a photo journalist, an author, and an adoption specialist. A philosopher and business owner can be in the cards as well. I can choose any of these roles when I am working with children. And they can too! What a great career!

Bullying in the classroom

Bullying is such a strong topic. One could never know enough about it.

There are 4 girls in my school-age program who are don't always get along. Two of them in particular rub shoulders. The one girl who is newest to the group (Casidy) often tried to fit in with them and ended up feeling rejected. I had many chats with her about this. Mostly about who her friends were.

There is another girl in the group, lets call her Sara, who she gets along with and trusts so I would talk about how she would hang out with that girl instead of try to make friends with the others. I needed to give her someone to play with because otherwise she would be on her own all the time, and miss out on friendships and social skills.

Now it is also my job to encourage the children to have prosocial behaviours, so I talked to her about some of the things she does that she could do differently. For example, if she gets mad at someone, she will yell at them and then walk away. So we talked about taking a deep breath, and telling them calmly what it is they are doing that is hurtful. This is harder than it sounds, of course, but it is an important skill to learn. Another thing she could do is listen to the other side. Walking away, she doesn't hear that.

Cassidy is doing a lot better with the group. She plays with Sara a lot and is playing with the other girls sometimes as well. They still have arguments and difficulties, but that is normal for their age. Whenever possible, my coworker and I step in to monitor their behaviour and make sure no bullying goes on, such as name calling and pushing or any other unwanted physical contact. We are not afraid to write-up a Notice of Inappropriate Behaviour form to their parents when necessary.


Some prosocial behaviours to encourage your children to have are:

Helping
Sharing
Donating
Cooperating
Forgiving
Obeying rules

Prosocial behaviours are actions meant to help or benefit another individual or group.

One way to teach this is from examples in the animal kingdom. When animals and plants benefit each other it is called a Mutualistic relationship.

The Clown fish and the sea anenome is the most popular example. The clown fish is given protection by the sea anenome's stinging tenticles, while the sea anenome benefits from the fertilizer the fish gives.

Other examples of Mutualistic relationships include:

Butterflies/Bees and flowers
Cecropia trees and Azteca ants
Oxpecker and Rhinocerous
Crocodiles and Plover birds

Even animals can be friends :)

*All names are pseudonyms
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