[Tammy Schamuhn] Welcome everyone to the Child Psych podcast. My name is Tammy and I’m a registered child psychologist, registered play therapist, the co-founder of the Institute of Child Psychology, and I’m a mom to three amazing kids. Today we have with us Dr. Ellen Braaten. Welcome Dr. Braaten to the podcast!

[Dr. Braaten] Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Ellen Braaten Introduction 

[Tammy Schamuhn] Yeah, so just a little bit about what this podcast is going to be on, then we’ll talk about who Dr. Braaten is, and we’ll launch into a parent’s question. This is all about bright kids who couldn’t care less. This episode is about motivation and getting our kids who just want to play video games or sit in their rooms to re-engage in life. We have Dr. Ellen who is the director of Learning and Emotional Assessment program at Massachusetts General Hospital, and she’s an associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School. She’s widely recognized as an expert in the field of pediatric neuropsychological and psychological assessments, particularly in assessing learning disabilities and attentional disorders, and she’s been the recipient of funding to conduct research on studies of children with nonverbal learning disabilities, attentional disorders and has published numerous books and papers on that subject. She is the author of the book we’re going to be talking about today, which is called Bright Kids Who Couldn’t Care Less: How to Rekindle Your Child’s Motivation. She also co-authored Straight Talk about Psychological Testing for Kids. And what’s our other one here? Oh, How to Find Mental Health Care for Your Child, which was published by the American Psychological Association. You have quite the resume.

[Dr. Braaten] It makes me sound very old actually.

[Tammy Schamuhn] I was going to make you sound very intelligent. Honestly, it’s very accomplished.

[Dr. Braaten] Thank you so much, but it’s surprising how the more you work, the more time you have to do these sorts of things, so I’m very lucky.

Parent Question: How Do I Get My Kid Motivated Again?

[Tammy Schamuhn] Absolutely. I have a ton of questions because I told you before we started recording that I just finished your book yesterday, I read it over the last week. But here is a question from one of our viewers on motivation and I feel this as a parent because my kid went through this at one point. I’m just like “oh, hang in there, it gets better.” It says

“I’ve got a super bright 12-year-old who did so well up to junior high. Now he’s in the 7th grade and seems completely uninterested in school and he’s barely passing. My wife and I feel like homework is a battle almost every night and it’s eroding our relationship with him. He used to be interested in sports and playing outdoors, but now he’s starting to get into gaming and it’s the only thing he’s interested in. We’re looking for ways to get him motivated in school and with the world offline again.”

I think this will resonate with many parents and we’ll talk about your book and some of the things you attribute to motivation as we go through. But what are a few pieces of wisdom you could give this parent who’s struggling with this?

[Dr. Braaten] So, one of the things I would say right off the bat is to give this time. There is no magic bullet, and I think that is what is so frustrating for parents when they have an unmotivated child. They think if we just get them in the right sort of treatment, within two months this will be solved. Motivation is a lifelong issue, so look at this as an opportunity, because we all lose motivation at different points in our life. And this is a big time of change for their child, middle school is huge. So, what’s happened is there’s been a huge change, and this child has not found his footing yet. It’s a process now of discovering why he is unmotivated. Does he not have the skills to be motivated? Oftentimes, gaming is a way of spending time when you don’t know what it is you’re supposed to be doing, or you can’t do it. Think about what we’re going to be talking about today. We need to spend a lot of time uncovering what it is that he doesn’t care about. And that’s one of the first things I would talk about is, “how do you know he doesn’t care?” Other than spending too much time gaming, start to identify what those things are. Start to think about whether or not your expectations are right for your child. In this case, it does sound like they are. I mean, an expectation to make sure they get their homework done on time is reasonable. And then think about what are the changes that have happened that might be undermining his motivation. When I hear middle school, I think, “do they not have the skills to be successful in middle school? Are there social issues that have gotten in the way and are causing a child to be unmotivated?” Those are the first two places I would look at for a child in middle school, and the first things I would think about when uncovering the reasons, and then I’m sure we’re going to be talking about what to do in terms of looking at what the next step is once we think about these things.

[Tammy Schamuhn] I remember going into middle school, and I was in a very small elementary school. You know, there was basically one grade, 20 kids in each grade, K to six. And then all of a sudden, I’m in a school with 1000 kids, and it’s different. You must go from class to class, you have five different teachers, maybe you’re good at something but suddenly there’s 20 other kids who are just as good at that thing, and it can really undermine your confidence. Even going off to university, that same shift happened where you’re just like, “what’s the point? It’s so chaotic, there’s so many expectations, and everything is so different,” that we sometimes can go into kind of a state of learned helplessness when we get into these chaotic environments we’re not used to yet.

[Dr. Braaten] Completely. And that’s especially true if we don’t have the skills that we need to be successful. If you’re going off to college and you’re feeling like I am ready for this, I’m ready to get out of the house, and have some independence. That’s great. But if you get into college or middle school, and it’s like “I don’t know how to handle all these different teachers, I went from one teacher in 5th grade to now six different teachers in 6th grade.” So, part of it might be giving children the scaffolding they need to be successful. There’s never just one thing I should say. It’s never just “oh my goodness, it is the wrong teacher,” but a lot of times there is one thing that sort of was the catalyst. For example, a loss of a friendship, or moving from that small elementary school to a bigger school, maybe their best friend didn’t move on with them, maybe there’s a teacher who has it out for the child. There are lots of different things that can be a catalyst.

[Tammy Schamuhn] Yeah. We have to uncover, be curious and open to what possibly is in this case. Now when I was reading through your book and then we’ll talk and give parents some tools here too. Like of course, we have this beautiful acronym that will help guide parents. We’ll break each step down, which is what I really love. In this book, there was a father who came to you, and he described his son as malazy. It’s a combination of malaise and lazy, we may have to define what that means to someone who’s not familiar. I had to look up that word. You talk about how it means a lack of motivation, diminished interest in things they used to be interested in, or other kids are interested in, and problems completing almost anything. Now this could sound like anxiety and depression. Some parents immediately jump to that, they’re like “oh my God, my kid is depressed,” but based on your work, it sounds like it could be more than just that. I mean, that could be a possibility, but what are some things that could account for the malazy kids?

[Dr. Braaten] I should say too, even in the question that you asked before, depression and anxiety should always be ruled out because having this sort of malazy… And I’ve had some people say, “I hate that word, that’s terrible.” It’s not my word. I should just say, a father did say this because oftentimes parents come in and say, “my child just seems lazy to me.” I have yet to meet a truly lazy child. Nobody likes being lazy unless we’re on a beach in the Caribbean somewhere. But most of the time, we want to be productive. And kids really do want to learn. So that malaise, which is kind of like the blahs. And then lazy, which parents think “he just doesn’t want to do this.” This together is what the parent said. So, it can be a little bit of anxiety, it can be a little bit of depression, it can be a little bit of incompetence and that’s the one thing that we often overlook in these situations. And I know I said this before, but boy, you know, if we don’t know what it is we have to do all of us seem to have that malaziness, so if I’m asked to do something that I cannot do, and if I’m asked to write a paper in Russian, for example, I have nowhere to start, I can’t fake my way through it and we oftentimes ask kids to do those things, especially kids with learning disabilities or who are struggling with severe depression, who are consumed with anxiety. Or some sort of situation that’s happened that we may or may not know about that can look like this sort of malaziness when it’s really a whole different reason or whole different cause.

[Tammy Schamuhn] I know your book highlights this because it is one of your clinical specialties. Kids can have a learning disability and sometimes that doesn’t get uncovered until they’re expected to do some high order executive functioning in junior and senior high or even late elementary school. You also talk about attention deficit disorder, sometimes we can see issues around executive functioning with anxiety and depression. But what are some other attributing factors? We’re talking about disorders, but sometimes it’s not disorders at all. And we don’t want to jump the gun and be like “my kid needs a label.” But sometimes labels can be helpful. 

[Dr. Braaten] Sometimes labels can be helpful. We want to make sure if there’s a label then it’s the correct label, and that the label is only as good as the treatment that follows. If a child has an issue, sometimes it can be slow processing speed, which is another area of my research, which looks like kids who are slower at taking in information and then coming up with a response. If you’re always a step behind your peers, you’re going to eventually lose motivation, you’re always the last one to get done, the last one to finish. So that’s one reason. Another reason is we’re coming out of the pandemic, and when I started this book, I thought it was just going to be about those kids with anxiety, depression, slow processing speed, learning disabilities. Then the pandemic happened, and we are still dealing with kids who are lacking motivation. They went through a big trauma. They are negotiating social situations, depending on their age, I see different problems for different ages of kids and all those problems are going to impact motivation. In older adolescence, they did not have the same social environment. They’re struggling to handle all the different social situations that they’re in because they didn’t get to practice like they normally would have. For younger kids, they might not have gotten the right kind of education for reading, math, where some kids are just more vulnerable and needed direct instruction, so they might look like they are lacking in motivation when really, they’re lacking in skills. Then the other thing too, think about the reasons why you become unmotivated. Oftentimes it’s that we have too much to do. There are lots of unmotivated kids who are super competent, super smart, have no disorder, disability, but they’re like “I’ve got too much going on. I’m in all these sports, I’m committed every minute of the day,” that can be a real motivation killer. Too much stuff when I have too much on my plate. It’s not like I always charge ahead. Sometimes I’m reaching for my phone and scrolling through Instagram. It’s either one of those things, too much or too little. Not being in our zone of pleasure is also important.

[Tammy Schamuhn] Yeah, I know we talked to Kim Payne a lot about this. We’re writing a book with him right now and he talks a lot about simplifying and how we overwhelm kids with a lot of stuff because we want them to get the best education and the best opportunities. But when you never have any down time and they never have time to pursue the things they want to, because parents sometimes project what we think kids need, and so they’re in these activities, they may not even like. They’re doing it because that’s what their family does, and that’s what they’ve been told they’re supposed to do. And then they’re no longer in the driver’s seat. They’re overwhelmed, they’re constantly going from school, soccer, and then piano lessons or whatever it is. Until finally they’re burnt out, they’re kids and they’re burning out.

[Dr. Braaten] Exactly, burnout is a way of becoming unmotivated. I should say too, that for a large number of kids, at least in the United States, College is the number one thing. Everybody must go to college. Everybody has to go to a four-year college. There are so many families that put that pressure on their kids and some kids aren’t ready to go to college at 18. They don’t know what they want to study, or they want to do something else, they want to go into cosmetology or go into carpentry work or all sorts of things, coding where you don’t really need a college education. And so, the pressure that parents put on their kids to be at that level where they can get into a great college can serve as a way of unmotivating kids and that starts as early as middle school. You’ve got to have the right kind of extracurricular activities. You must get the right kinds of grades and with all that pressure, some kids just show that they don’t want to do that by just dropping out, basically. And I don’t mean literally dropping out of high school, although that can happen. They just drop out of doing.

The Parenting APP: Aptitude, Pleasure, Practice 

[Tammy Schamuhn] Yeah, absolutely, I know for many of you, you have heard me talk about one of my kiddos. I have a 16-year-old, we know about the different tests you can take, but she has attention deficit, slow processing speed, so her WISC scores are very low in terms of processing speed. And because of that school’s really hard for her. She has a learning disability with math and reading. We have been very cognizant and when I saw your model, I was like, “yes, we’re doing that.” This is why she’s hanging in there. We had to be like, “you know what? We expect you to finish high school, but you don’t have to go to college, that’s okay. We want you to be happy, kiddo, but that means finding your passion, finding what you’re interested in. And we’ll talk about aptitude, is like the things you’re good at, and we’ll figure something out, that it will fit for you.” When we took the pressure off her and highlighted that to her, then she wanted to try, because we weren’t saying, “you have to do this and you have to get this job or you have to go to college,” We’re like no. The part of finding happiness is finding out, what motivates you and you need to try things to figure out what that is. We’ll talk about this parenting acronym you have to get kids motivated to move forward in their lives, in whatever capacity, and it’s called “the parenting APP”. APP is the is the acronym; aptitude, pleasure, and practice. Let’s dive into aptitude, which I love this by the way. You wrote in your book that psychology is mostly known for answering the question “what’s wrong with my child?” instead of helping them determine “what’s right with my child?” This is where I was like, yes, it’s how we frame it. It’s like, “what is my kiddo actually good at? What is their strength?” because every child has strengths and I don’t care what disability they have, they have a strength. They have gifts.

The Parenting APP: Aptitude 

[Dr. Braaten] Absolutely. And I think we get completely far away from that when we’re talking about it. First of all, I just have to commend you for being such a wonderful parent and listening to your child. I have a child just like yours, except he’s 30 and I made different choices than you did. I didn’t know what I knew now. So, the fact that we look at, “who are you and what are you good at?” Everything that seems like a weakness is also a positive. If you have a child with slow processing speed, that’s going to be tough for you in school, but in life there are lots of places that value that slow, thoughtful kind of processing. What are those? Oftentimes people with slower processing speed are really great at forming relationships with others because relationships are about deep connections. Thinking about “what are my child’s strengths?” And sometimes parents will say they have no strengths, like when I have a parent in my office who has a child and they’re like “they just don’t care about anything.” I need to start with, “let’s just think about this.” We’ve got to think broader than just academics and intelligence. That is just a small part of life. We’ve got to think about, what’s their humanity like? Are they kind? Are they socially intelligent? Are they good at teamwork? Do they have leadership qualities? All these things we need to think about in terms of their strengths. If you have trouble finding your child’s strengths, you need to think about what it is. Where are they the most themselves? Where do they have that desire? That sense of excitement? What are the sorts of things they do without you having to remind them? Again, think broadly, are they the sort of child that picks up the phone and calls their grandparents without being reminded? Do they play with the dog? There are all sorts of ways of showing your strength outside of a grade or score on a test.

[Tammy Schamuhn] Yeah. And I think that comes down to who we expect our children to be and who they are. That’s where you mentioned questions we ask parents, in your book you ask, “are you expecting your child who couldn’t care less to be a lot like you, or your husband or your wife or your other kids and that’s not who they are?” When we force kids into what we think they should be and we have this prescriptive checklist for them and they can’t meet that checklist because it’s not who they are, there’s a mismatch, of course they shut down because we’re not valuing them for their gifts and their strengths and their attributes. I think it’s about being mindful, like what you say in the book, we’ve got to watch that, like what we’re putting on our kids. 

[Dr. Braaten] We’ve got to think when and where they were happiest. That’s a great place to start thinking about their strengths. If you’ve sort of lost that. And sometimes parents have a 15-year-old who’s just like, “I don’t care” you’ve got to start thinking “where were you happy?” And then talk to your child about this. We are so afraid to talk to our kids about “What do you think you’re good at?” And this moves right into pleasure too, which it’s not always the things that we’re good at that give us pleasure. There are kids who are very gifted in sports, for example, and their parents want them to play the sport. But they don’t love playing the sport. They’re great at baseball and the parents are like, “this is your life. This is how you’re going to get into college.” But it doesn’t give them pleasure so that can be also a motivating law. You’ve got to think, “what are your aptitudes?” But then we’ve also then got to think about, “where do those aptitudes also give you pleasure?” A lot of times it’s the same thing, but not always.

[Tammy Schamuhn] Yeah, I have a kiddo who is actually very good at sports, but she hates it. We’re like “this is such a missed opportunity, you’re really good at this.” But she hates anything competitive. She really likes music and art, and we just had to grieve that a little. We have this really talented kid, it doesn’t matter what we put her in, she excels at it, but she hates it. And the more we push it, the more she feels inadequate because it’s like we’re saying “you’re not fitting in. You’re not hitting the checklist.” And her dad was big into sports, so we had to grieve that a little. 

[Dr. Braaten] You’re right, parents do have to grieve that too. And a lot of times your whole social life is around there. You know, they start at age five doing a certain sport, and that’s your whole like peer group too, not only theirs. It is hard to let that go, especially if you’ve thought of your child as a star hockey player and they want to be a poet. They want to design fashion. They want to do something that’s totally different. You’ve got to be able to let that go. 

[Tammy Schamuhn] What are other ways we can figure out their aptitudes? I’m hearing there’s questions to ask and noticing too. What I often do with my kids is make a comment when I see them doing something, whether it’s sharing, or they’re playing with the pets. My 16-year-old with slow processing speed is awesome with our dogs, cats, taking care of animals, she’s good with her siblings and other people’s children. We started to really notice it, and we’re saying, “your face just lights up when you do this and you are so helpful with them” and asking, “does this feel really good when you’re doing these things?” We then suggested a few things that might lend to that, like volunteering at the YMCA. She took a dog training class with our golden retriever, and we remained curious to see if it sparked a fire in her. Maybe it won’t, but it’s remaining open to what might light her up and it not being about our own agenda.

[Dr. Braaten] Yeah, exactly. I think if you have a child for whom you’ve had an evaluation, there should be strengths in there. I think if you’ve lost that ability to do what you’ve just explained, then talk to other people: grandparents; teachers; other neighbors; even neighbors who are always saying “oh my gosh, you’re your son is just fabulous. He always says hello. He helps me in with the groceries.” That’s a strength and an important strength for life. And so, capitalize on that and look at those sorts of things that are volunteer work, etc. Think about the things that they don’t have to be asked to do. For example, they’re always fiddling on the piano or something like that, or are always with a book, there are some kids who just love to read to the exclusion of everything else. There are ways to have that inner voice of “where is my child spending his time when he seems happy?” And I have to say most kids do not seem that happy when they’re playing video games. It’s not just where they are spending their time, but where do they seem to light up.

[Tammy Schamuhn] Yeah, I think with video games too. I’ve talked to many teenagers, and I think a big part of it is it’s one of the places they have control. They can be creative, if they don’t feel socially accepted in person, maybe they lack social skills, they get a sense of belonging because they’re gaming with other kids. Sometimes I know that’s what it can be for them. The question is, “how do you know where they are lacking control in their lives?” Is there a way I can connect them in person to other kids if that’s what it is. They probably need more play, they’ve had too much structure in some places. So again, why do they seek that out? And those seem to be a lot of the reasons. Video games are also addictive but that’s another whole podcast.

[Dr. Braaten] They are addictive. I mean, all those things are true. But oftentimes we kind of revert to those sorts of things, to social media, just because we’re overwhelmed sometimes, and we don’t always know what to do with ourselves.

The Parenting APP: Pleasure

[Tammy Schamuhn] Aptitude is finding your kids strengths. Now, the second piece of the acronym is pleasure, and that can come from things that we have aptitude in. But what other things do we need to consider? Because I know you might have a parent who says, “my kid is so apathetic that they’re not interested.” Almost like they don’t gain pleasure from anything like it doesn’t matter what we do, it’s just flat. A psychologist would say they have flat affect. Where do we need to do some work here with the pleasure part of this acronym?

[Dr. Braaten] We need to be more in touch with pleasure in our own lives. We do not have enough pleasure happening in our own lives. Parents are traveling from one place to the other in the car all the time. First of all, think about yourself, “Where am I happiest? And what kind of model am I presenting to my child about pleasure?” The other things you want to do is if it’s chronic apathy, you want to get that checked out. You want to make sure that there aren’t any symptoms of depression or even anxiety. Sometimes anxiety can be debilitating, and we can sort of freeze. But sometimes kids get stuck in the apathy zone because they never have a chance to do something that they’re competent in. That’s why aptitude is important, but that also they need to enjoy what they are doing. And so, we need to be in touch with “what do you like doing?” I’ve had parents say to me, “I don’t want to ask my child that question because I’m afraid of what he’ll say.” That’s how afraid we are of pleasure in our world. But I think if you’re not really sure and it’s tough for you to find that pleasure with an apathetic child, start with talking about gratitude, “What are the sorts of things that you’re grateful for?” Incorporate gratitude into your family’s life, talking about “what are we most thankful for today?” Spend time with your child doing pleasurable activities, so if they really love music and they want you to listen to the song that they’re really into, start there. And we oftentimes are in such a hurry when our child says, “oh my gosh mommy, you have to listen to this song” but we are like, “you need to get your homework done.” They do need to get their homework done, but they’re telling you what gives them pleasure and you need to listen to those sorts of things and make sure your house doesn’t just value self-sacrifice, and performance at all costs. That is a pleasure killer. When we are overdoing it, it takes the pleasure out of things and the other way to be more cognizant of pleasure is to slow everything down. When we are too busy, we don’t stop to smell the roses. And I think that’s one other way of figuring this out. You know what gives you pleasure and talking to your kids about what gives them pleasure.

[Tammy Schamuhn] Yeah, my husband and I talk to our kids about it, we try to model it, and we talk about the things that lights us up. We always ask our kids “what lights you up?” And for me it’s horses, I have nine of them at home and I do training and lessons. They know if I’m not in the house, I’m probably out in the barn, when I’m not doing something with the kids. And my husband fixes old snowmobiles, and he raises chickens. He’s an engineer, but this is something he just does that lights him up. He loves to fix things, he loves to create things. We told them it doesn’t have to be what we’re interested in but asking them, “what lights you up, guys? That’s what we want you to find.” And that’s what I think about when we’re talking about using pleasure. What brings them joy that doesn’t feel like work, rather it’s play. And I think what we’re talking about is what feels playful to them, where they lose track of time. They don’t do it because it’s a goal, they’re not trying to reach a goal. They do it just because they love doing it, they lose themselves in it.

[Dr. Braaten] Absolutely true. What are the things you would do even if nobody paid you to do it? Even if you were given unlimited time, what things do you look forward to? What makes you feel excited. What are the things you need to stop your kids from doing to move on to something else, and not in that way of being addicted to something. Then asking them, “why did you like this? Did you find it challenging? Is challenging good for you?” For some kids, they love a challenge. For other kids, they get pleasure from things that are simple and automatic for them to do. It’s not the same for everybody.

[Tammy Schamuhn] Okay, now this next question I have is based on my values and some of the research I have done. I’m curious what you think about it. With kiddos who have, for instance, a legitimate ADHD diagnosis. I think it’s diagnosed at 11% but it should be at 2.5%, so we know there’s kids who are diagnosed who shouldn’t be. But with that being said, we know kids with ADHD have dopamine dysfunction, legitimate ADHD. What we often see is that they lack motivation because they lack a neurotransmitter, like not enough dopamine, which is all about motivation. We know that rewards, tangible rewards, can increase dopamine. For example, when there’s a goal and I get a reward at the end, this can increase dopamine. But I always tell parents that it can undermine external motivation, and it can undermine internal motivation. What is your theory on rewards, kids and motivation? Because this is a specialty of yours.

[Dr. Braaten] You know, external rewards don’t work all that well. Here’s the thing. What we mostly want to do in life, especially when talking about motivation, is to have things in our lives that are intrinsically motivating, meaning that we do it because we love to do it. We want to get up and do whatever it is like reach for the book and read for pleasure, or exercise because we get something from that. For kids with ADHD, the thing that I always think about is “are they getting enough exercise? Are they getting enough sleep?” Because all of that is important for brain functioning and it can get in the way of motivation. But there are different things that we need to have external motivators for, especially with a child who has ADHD. One is that they’ve waited too long, and it needs to be done right away. Everyone is very clear about this, “okay, you’ve got to get this done. If you get this done, I’m going to give you X,Y or Z as a reward.” I don’t like doing this and it’s okay to say, as a parent, “I don’t like doing this, but we are in a bind and next time we’re going to do this differently.” If it’s something that really needs to be done quickly. If it’s something that is not that fun to do, it’s okay to have an external reward for it. For example, when you have to clean your room, or when you clean out the garage, they go out for ice cream afterwards, or something like that. If it’s not intrinsically motivating to do. It’s never intrinsically motivating to clean your closet until you get that feeling like, “whoa, everything’s in its place, I love this.”  These are the areas that I would focus on. I think we do rely too much on extrinsic motivations, especially for kids with ADHD, because we are frustrated as parents. The “you got to get this done,” kind of thinking about this, and talking to your child about why they are doing this assignment and why it is important and saying “okay, you’ve got to get this done. I know you don’t love math or whatever it is, but math is important. Here’s why it’s important. You won’t always need this.” Let us figure out a way to make this fun for you.

[Tammy Schamuhn] Yeah, I had this experience this summer, it was the most frustrating summer I’ve ever had with my daughter. She was trying to get her learner’s permit for driving and she waited a really long time to do the test. She has a learning disability, so this test is horrible for her. She really struggles with reading and multiple choice, and she would probably be mortified that I am saying this, but she had failed the test multiple times. So finally, we cut back on her phone use and said, “it’s one hour a day until you pass the exam.” We’ll help you study; we got cue cards; we got an app for her. We did everything, we studied with her. It just so happened that her phone died because it was an old phone. And then we finally said, “hey, kiddo, you got to pass the exam before you get a new phone, so you’re basically, poop out of luck until you pass the exam.” It was brutal, but it was honestly the only thing that motivated her to study for this damn thing. And normally I don’t like doing that because I didn’t want it to be punitive, but it worked. And it was so hard and deflating every time she didn’t pass this exam. She’d always miss it by one or two questions. But she passed after 11 attempts. We also highlighted for her that in order to get a job, she needs a car. We live in the country, this is a life skill, it’s non-negotiable. You can’t take a bus when we live out here. You need to be able to drive.

[Dr. Braaten] The thing to remember too, as parents, is that you are building resiliency. To us, it feels traumatic to see your child without their phone. But you know what? She’s going to remember that in a positive way. She is not going to say my parents did that. They’re going to someday use this for their own children, or their own relationships, or whatever. This is not a bad thing. It feels bad and punitive as a parent, but I think that it’s clear. The other thing is that it’s hard with ADHD, especially because clear limits work really well. “You do this, you get that.” But maybe don’t always have that reward. Back to your question. You don’t always need the reward to be so great that it makes what we asked them to do seem like nobody wants to do it. There’s a lot of research on reading. For example, if we reward kids too much for reading, they start to think, “I only read when somebody gives me a reward.”

[Tammy Schamuhn] Yeah, I know there’s all those old studies in the 60s, kindergarten children who are given a reward for using felts or crayons and the kids would engage in it. There’s one with puzzles and university students too, so there’s classic studies on motivation that when we provide a reward for doing something, kids naturally want to do, it actually undermines them entirely. They quit doing it.

[Dr. Braaten] Exactly. And the example that you gave with your daughter is not one of those things, taking the driver’s test is not something that’s intrinsically motivating it’s scary and anxiety provoking. And we’re like, “okay, you’ve got to do this, it’s something that’s got to be done. Let’s find the right kind of reward till you get on the other side of this.” 

[Tammy Schamuhn] And to be fair, we chalked it up and had many discussions on her grit and resilience and her ability to put her nose in that book for weeks, especially towards the end. She was studying 3-4 hours on her own without being prompted. And we just said, “you can do hard things kiddo, you have a learning disability, of course this was hard.” But we’re so proud of her, she was so proud of herself. It was amazing. But we had to take the phone away. We didn’t want too but we did, and it worked. 

[Dr. Braaten] Yeah, it does. In those cases, it does work. It’s the hardest thing to do.

The Parenting APP: Practice

[Tammy Schamuhn] We’re running out of time. The last part of your acronym is practice. You’ve got these kiddos who we have figured out the aptitude for, and then moved to pleasure, and I talked about my daughter and her practice. Can you spend more time on this idea of practice and how we can get our kids there. 

[Dr. Braaten] Practice is what are the things that they would do when given unlimited time. How would they spend their time? And of course, all these things seem like they’re one and the same, but they’re not. Aptitude is what we are naturally good at. Pleasure is what we love doing. Practice is given unlimited time; how would I spin my wheels? Where we want to be in terms of helping a child be motivated is at the intersection of those three things. Practice is what we persist at doing. For example, we might not be great at tennis, but a child might practice throwing the tennis ball at the garage over and over again. They may be very persistent at that. It’s the sort of thing that we don’t need to be externally motivated to do, and that’s probably the easiest way for me to describe it. Homework is usually not intrinsically motivating and when it is, pay attention to that, because that is probably an area of your child’s strength. For example, if they love doing creative writing assignments but they hate the rest of their homework, pay attention to that. That’s something that’s probably an area where they would practice if they had more time. The important thing about practicing though is a lot of kids don’t have time to demonstrate that, they don’t have time because they are so over scheduled. They don’t have time to even figure out what they would be practicing if they had more time. Make sure you’ve got a schedule that gives them time to be bored to figure out like, “alright you know you’ve got all day to do something or all summer, figure out what you want to do.” And motivating factors are the things that they would naturally find themselves in the middle of aptitude, patience, and practice. 

[Tammy Schamuhn] Beautiful. I think what’s important here, I think parents and as a parent who has a kid who has been stuck here in the past, she is now motivated. But it took years because of her learning disability, ADHD, processing speed issues, to really figure that out and unearth where her strengths were. She now is motivated, she walks the dogs, and she helps with her siblings, and she helps her dad outside with building, she likes building things. She has a great work ethic if she enjoys what she’s doing. And we just had to grieve that she was never going to be a strong student. But then the expectation was being “kiddo, you just need to graduate high school. And eventually you’re going to get a job.” But we have to let go of how we thought our kids were going to be or who we thought they would be or that they’re not like our other kids. Often that’s why parents are blinded to see their kid’s strengths because they want them to fit into this box of what we thought success would be or how to get a good job or whatever that is.

[Dr. Braaten] Exactly. And the way they’ll show you that they want you to listen is becoming more and more unmotivated, so they will be like “nobody’s paying attention, I’m going to say forget it.” And they’ll stop doing those things and practicing the things that they used to love doing. Drawing, kicking around the soccer ball, etc. They’ll stop doing that because it’s like, “no one is helping me figure this out.” What you did is so important, and the first thing is figuring out “who is my child?” and really listening.

[Tammy Schamuhn] And for any parents, because I’m talking about a child that I have who has several codes, she has what’s called an IPP. We had her tested at school when she was in elementary, and I know you have some resources I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast. If parents aren’t sure where to get these sorts of tests, psychologists can do them, and the schools often have funding to get them done. Sometimes parents do have to push for that. If you’re one of those parents like me, we had to go down the route and push to get a psychologist to assess her through the school. The school paid for it, which was wonderful. I realize that’s not always an option. And sometimes parents do have to seek that out. But Dr. Braaten does have a guide for parents on that she wrote with American Psychological Association. And then the treatments that are appropriate to follow.

[Dr. Braaten] Yes, exactly. There’s more information.

[Tammy Schamuhn] Okay, beautiful. Because I know we’ve had to do the tutoring option just to get her through math. Like there’s no other way to do it. She can’t get through math without tutoring and we’re not teachers anymore. And I never taught junior high and high school, so I’m useless when it comes to that. 

Well, thank you so much for your time today. This was illuminating. Again everyone, the book I was referring to, the one we were talking about today was Bright Kids Who Couldn’t Care Less: How to Rekindle Your Child’s Motivation. What I really love about this book is how there are many case studies talking about kids who have struggled. And reading the book to the end I got to see some interventions and considerations these parents need to make, and what some of the blind spots are for parents. There are lots of tools for parents such as questions like, “what can I do? And how do I need to rethink this? And what’s the next steps.” I thought it was really tangible. It’s almost like a workbook for parents, working through it one step at a time on how to get kids to where we need them to be. It’s just not always going to look the way we thought it would.

[Dr. Braaten] Exactly. And we actually have a workbook coming out sometime next year that operationalizes a lot of this. But it is definitely a lot about asking questions, figuring this out, and putting words to what’s happening for your child that they don’t have.

[Tammy Schamuhn] Beautiful. Everyone that’s Bright Kids Who Couldn’t Care Less: How to Rekindle Your Child’s Motivation. There’s a link to her book in the notes of this podcast, if you look down below the episode, the description, just scroll down. I’ve also included a link to Dr. Ellen’s website as well, where you can learn more about her books, articles, and research. Thank you so much for today. It was just a lovely conversation.

[Dr. Braaten] Thank you so much, I’ve really enjoyed it.

[Tammy Schamuhn] Okay, thank you. Have a great day.