I believe one of the key factors in motivating children to take responsibility is to find their hot button. What I mean by that is their motivator. What stops them from making wrong choices and motivates them to do the right thing?
Recently I was working with a 6 year old child and I knew saving money was his motivator. How do I know that? In chatting with him at various times when money came up he would talk about how much money he had in his wallet. I would ask him what he wanted to do with the money. He would tell me he didn't know and didn't seem to care about spending it. He was just proud he had that much money. Now read on to see what follows for me to teach him the value of making good decisions and if one doesn't it can cost money.
It was time for free play outside. It was the beginning of Spring. Weather was beautiful and water puddles were in the drive way from the snow melting. John was having a good time with the puddles. Rolling balls through it and see the splash. This didn't phase me if he got wet. It was part of being a child and the spontaneity of splashing the water, but John decided to get creative and didn't make a good decision.
John decided there wasn't enough water in the puddle. So he goes into the garage and gets two bottles of water bought from the store and decides to pour them into the puddle. Is John old enough to know he shouldn't do this? Sure he is! He's 6 years old, doing second grade math and knows this cost money.
I personally didn't witness him pouring the water from the bottles, but noticed two empty, crushed bottles near his scooter and asked about them. He obviously didn't want to confess to me what he'd done, but his sister stepped up and told me. I sent him to time out and started thinking this isn't going to effect him to make the right decision before taking action.
After about 2 minutes in time out I asked him, "Your wallet is up in your room, right?" He said, "Yes". I told him I was going to get it. I passed him the wallet and told him to give me $2.00 for the two bottles of water he just wasted that his parents bought with their money. He passed me the money and I told him this time it's only costing him $1.00 per bottle, but if it happened again it would cost him $5.00 per bottle. I told him if he was ready to make good decisions he could go put his wallet back up in his room and go back outside and play. He did just that.
I still wasn't finished with this lesson. Since he happens to be very good at math I decided to give him an assignment to understand this lesson and apply it to his own life. He was about to go on spring break to Disney World. I told him the assignment was that he needed to find out what the cost of water was at the theme parks and tell me when he got back.I discussed all of this with his parents and they supported me on teaching him the lesson to value things and not waste them.
Upon his arrival back from Disney World I asked him the question he knew I would ask. John responded immediately and said, "Water was $2.00 per bottle and soda was $2.50." I said to him, so you got a good deal for what you had to spend for the two bottles of water you dumped out. He agreed with me. I asked him if he wanted to spend his money from his wallet to buy water from now on. He said, "no". I said, then I guess you'll make right decisions and not waste things Mom and Dad have spent money on. He said, "that's right". I said super, I think that's a good decision.
Let me give you another scenario that happened at Disney World with him that shows you how smart this child is in knowing the value of money. I was having a conversation with John's Dad after they got back from vacation. You know those machine that crushed the penny and print a certain character on the coin? Well it costs fifty cents to get one of these. John did this one of the first days he was at Disney World. A few days went by and he notices a similar machine and asked his dad for fifty cents. Dad gave John the fifty cents but explained that this wouldn't happen all the time. John takes the money and is getting ready to put it in the machine, he stop, thinks and puts the money in his pocket. John's Dad asked him what he was doing. John replied, "I don't want to do it, it's not worth it to pay fifty cents for a penny worth one cent to be crushed". John's Dad said, "okay, but don't think that I'm going to keep giving you money."
I would say this young man is a very intelligent child wouldn't you? So what's your child's hot button? What makes them want to do the right thing? If you can find it you'll be successful in leading them to make good decisions on a daily basis. Let me hear from you and your experiences with children and finding their motivator?
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