How do you motivate someone who is living a comfortable life? We will find out today what drives you and your children and what can you do to influence a child’s motivation.

Recently, my friend interviewed me for his YouTube channel and we discussed parenting differences, especially between how we were raised in the East and how we are raising our children in the West. Since that interview was a casual chit chat, we did not go deep into the nuances of parenting and education. My core message was that the Western education system emphasizes on internal motivation and drive versus external pressures. But this message is simplistic and naive unless we qualify it with more details. We need to describe how internal motivation correlates with the enjoyment of work and how parenting styles can influence internal motivation.

Delving a little deeper into parenting styles, there are four types as you can see in the diagram.

 

Authoritarian: This style is very common in Eastern cultures and is also prevalent in the West in traditional families. This style is focused on obedience and punishment. For eg., the parent with this style is more likely to say “You do this because I said so and I am your parent”. This parenting style is low on sensitivity.

Uninvolved: I have not seen many uninvolved parents in my social circles but I am aware that there are plenty of such parents in both the East and the West. These parents are neither interested in enforcing rules nor interested in connecting deeply with their children. This parenting style is low on sensitivity as well.

Permissive: This is another common parenting style. These parents are sensitive but they don’t enforce rules. The children become entitled and run over their parents.

Authoritative: This is considered the best parenting style. The parents are sensitive and also enforce rules. This parent is most likely to explain why the rules exist in the first place. They are also more likely to build internal motivation in their children.

Whether you enjoy what you do depends on many constraints and factors- your responsibilities, your financial commitment, and the availability of desirable work in your geography. These are external constraints and factors but there are also internal factors- the most important of which is internal motivation. Imagine, you grew up in relative prosperity and the external factors were not enough to motivate you. How can you motivate yourself or how can your parents motivate you?

The theory of internal motivation: Daniel Pink in his groundbreaking book Drive writes about this theory in great detail. The idea is that parents and educators can help build internal motivation in children. We are not naive to suggest that the children can build internal motivation for all their tasks and goals. We still need to apply external factors of carrots and sticks for humdrum activities around cleanliness, routine, and discipline. However, for educational and career goals, building an internal drive is the way to go, if external circumstances like money is not a roadblock. If the parents and educators fail to build internal drive in children, they will have to eventually resort to putting external pressure on children if they want them to become financially independent. An example of this would be kicking a child out of the house after college if the now-adult child doesn’t exhibit a drive to become financially independent (Of course, they can stay at home with parents till the time they are not doing it to avoid building their own careers). The question is which strategy works better- focusing on external pressures right from an early age or focusing on external pressures only if you were unsuccessful in building internal motivation in children?  I would argue that it depends on the economic circumstances of the family and the opportunities available in that culture or country. For eg. if the children are highly motivated to pursuing useless college degrees, it’s a parent’s responsibility to inform them about the financial implications of such decisions. The parents should also choose to not pay for such degrees and warn their children about the long term consequences of high student debt.  If despite such warnings, children choose that path, then they should be informed that the consequences of their decisions are only theirs and not their parents’.

With this background information, let’s come to the meat of the issue- how to inculcate internal motivation?

The Right Mindset: Researchers call it The Growth Mindset. The idea is that if parents and educators praise the effort of children instead of their inherent abilities, children become internally motivated to put effort. What happens is that this reinforces in their brain that success and failure are functions of effort and not some inherent ability. Such kids are less likely to say things like- “I did not get the Math gene“. When they see failure as not an inherent ability problem, they push themselves harder to grow in any given discipline. They are likely to try hard problems even if they might fail since they don’t see failing as a reflection of their character.  Authoritative parents are more likely to engage in such exercise with their children.

Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness:

Autonomy: Kids have to be given agency and sense of control. Agency means that children feel that they have a say in the matter and this improves their internal locus of control. This helps kids in owning up to their responsibilities instead of blaming external circumstances. A funny example from my culture would be, if you had the autonomy to marry whomever you wanted to, you cannot blame your parents for a bad marriage. You would be internally motivated to own up to your responsibilities instead of blaming your parents for a bad match, which you can if you were married away in a traditional arranged marriage. In a traditional arranged marriage, it’s easier to blame the parents for ruining your life. A more relevant example would be choosing classes, interests, sports, and careers. All other things being equal, a child is more likely to be motivated if she had a say in choosing what she wanted to do with her life. Again, Authoritative parents are more likely to take their kids’ opinions into consideration, over Authoritarian parents. Permissive parents on the other hand can run the danger of going completely by their kids’ whims and impulses.

Competence: When parents and educators help children build competence, that increases children’s internal drive. The better they get at something, the more motivated they are to work towards it. But competence should not be the sole focus, at the expense of Autonomy and The Right Mindset. If you don’t believe me, read Andre Agassi’s autobiography “Open”. While he was highly competent and his father helped build that competence, it was done against his will (complete lack of Autonomy) and he detested playing Tennis and felt miserable throughout his career, despite the external theatrics.

Relatedness: This is about having adults show genuine interest in their children’s work. While this may sound like an external motivator, it helps build internal motivation because humans are social animals. For eg. a child tends to enjoy a subject if he likes the teacher. Educators and parents who connect well with children build a strong sense of internal motivation for learning that subject or discipline. Sometimes, scientists also use the word Purpose. When humans feel strongly about a Purpose, they tend to be internally motivated towards that Purpose.

Optimal Amount of Dopamine: Finally, we are talking about the neurotransmitter Dopamine. You might ask how, as a parent or an educator, can I influence the amount of a neurotransmitter in a child’s brain. Dopamine flows when the external rewards are a surprise because Dopamine works on a principle, the scientific term of which is called “reward prediction error”. When an unexpected reward is received, then Dopamine flows, and internal motivation increases. The keyword here is unexpected. If a reward is expected, then it erodes internal motivation. Dopamine also flows in an optimal way when challenges and skills are of a match. When a task is more challenging than your skills, then you tend to get frustrated. When a task is less challenging than your skills, then you get bored. Hence, as your skills improve, your challenges should be raised as well, so that the optimal flow of Dopamine happens and the internal motivation sustains. This can also happen when the other pieces of The Right Mindset, Autonomy, Competence/Mastery, and Relatedness/Purpose fall into place and Flow ( a term for describing the state of experience when challenges and skills match and it leads to intense absorption in the activity) is experienced.

That was a long discussion on internal motivation and it warrants all the nuances since it is a very difficult topic, especially in situations where external motivation is not enough to keep people interested in their careers and jobs. I personally believe that life is not one size fits all and all solutions should be contextual. But at the same time, I also believe that we should understand the latest science behind motivation instead of just operating with a single-minded approach of carrots and sticks, which might work in some contexts while not work in others. It is also important to understand your goals since that will help you in choosing the right strategy for your child. Enjoy the journey and you will, especially if you are internally motivated!

 

 

 

 

 

I write mostly about education because education can serve two purposes, improving the quality of life by providing access to resources and increasing intellectual appetite and capabilities, which also leads to a qualitative improvement of life.

However, we don’t do a very good job at protecting our intellectual abilities. Protection of brain health involves behavior changes and behavior changes are difficult. We tend to incline towards some easy solutions like pills and supplements but pills and supplements don’t do justice. Even better, we blame the genes and so does Popular Science and hence we don’t have to do anything about it since it is not in our control.

But the truth is that it is within our control. Just like managing your finances is within your control, so is managing your health.

Brain gets two major problems: Strokes and Alzheimer’s. This leads to dementia and eventual death. Below is an image which shows the regions of high death rates because of dementia in 2012

You can clearly see that western countries are at more risk, countries like USA, Canada, Australia and several countries in Europe.

Are genes responsible for the greater risk? Interestingly, no. Presence of a specific gene called ApoE4 increases your risk for Alzheimer’s but there are countries/populations with much larger densities of ApoE4 presence but far fewer cases of Alzheimer’s. One example is Nigeria (this phenomenon is also touted as the Nigerian paradox).

There are also studies where Japanese people living in Japan have far lower cases of Alzheimer’s compared to the Japanese people living in America, ruling genes out as the major cause of the disease.

Then, what is the reason for high risk? It’s the diet. Higher the presence of animal based products and lower the presence of whole plant-based foods in your diet, higher the chances of strokes and Alzheimer’s.

Let’s delve a little deeper into both Strokes and Alzheimer’s.

• Strokes: Clogged artery cuts off the supply to a part of the brain, killing that part and rendering that part rather useless, in a stroke. The causes of the strokes are high blood pressure and cholesterol. Here are the steps to prevent strokes:
  • Fiber: eat plenty of fiber. 97% of Americans eat fiber deficient foods. Berries, oatmeal, beans and other whole plant-based unprocessed foods have plenty of fiber.
  • Potassium: eating potassium rich foods like greens, beans and sweet potatoes will cut down the risk of strokes tremendously.
  • Citrus: citrus fruits are antioxidants and they beat the free radicals, hence preventing strokes. Think oranges and limes/lemons.
  • Optimal sleep: sleeping between seven or eight hours a night reduces the chances of strokes.
  • Other antioxidants: herbs and spices play a major role in cutting your risk of strokes. Think oregano, cloves, cinnamon and other spices.
  • Reducing meat, dairy and trans/saturated fats: meat and dairy have no fiber and meat has hardly any antioxidants. Reducing meat and dairy will also lead to reduction in cholesterol.
• Alzheimer’s: It is believed that Alzheimer’s is caused by the clogging of the arteries inside the brain with atherosclerotic plaque. ApoE4 gene has some role to play since ApoE4 makes the protein which is the principal cholesterol carrier in the brain. However, as mentioned earlier, lifestyle choices have far greater role to play.  Here are the steps to prevent Alzheimer’s:
  • Whole plant-based unprocessed foods: replacing meat, oils high in trans/saturated fats and dairy in your diet with  vegetables, legumes, fruits and grains will lower your risk for Alzheimer’s by lowering your cholesterol and helping with other things as well. Just like stroke prevention, plants and berries have more antioxidants, which combat the free radicals.
  • Spices: Saffron and Turmeric have been found to be helpful in the prevention of cognitive decline.
  • Reducing Gerontotoxins:  Advanced Glycation End products or AGEs accelerate the aging process and elevated levels of AGEs has been found in the brains of Alzheimer’s victims. Meat products have a high amount of AGEs versus the plant products. The style of cooking also matters. Boiling and stewing leads to less AGEs versus the dry heat cooking.
  • Aerobics: Aerobics has been shown to reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

This post will receive some backlash similar to posts which encourage saving money instead of spending. This is because any lifestyle change like eating less meat and dairy is hard. For starters, human beings are naturally attracted to high fat products like meat and dairy, just like sugar, and meat and dairy products are tastier than the average vegetables and fruits. The other aspect is that there are lots of commercial interests in promoting meat and dairy, hence the popular science brainwashing is that animal based products are your only sources of protein. Unsaturated fats are not bad at all and unsaturated fats are available mostly only from plants, hence, this is absolutely not a war against fat. Cutting both bad carbs and bad fats are important. Whole plant-based unprocessed foods will give you both good fats and good carbs and keep your brain healthy for a longer time.

The source of research for this article is the book “How Not To Die” written by Michael Greger, M.D. You can read/buy it here: How Not To Die.

These two words are not often taken together and I am going to disclose why they should be.

Meditation is a term which is perceived differently by different people. One of the simplest books which clarifies what Meditation is, is a book called Mindfulness In Plain English by Henepola Gunaratana. It tells you exactly what meditation is not before instructing what it is. In plain words, meditation is an activity where a human being monitors and maneuvers her breath, leading to an observation of thoughts with non-attachment. For more details on how to meditate, read the book.

Meditation leads to lots of short term and long term benefits and have been studied extensively by the scientific community.  For example: A meta-analysis of 47 trials adjusted for all biases and with control groups, proves that meditation reduces psychological stress and enhances well-being. There are some studies done on a related activity- Yoga. A heavily cited experiment conducted to compare the influence of several weeks of yoga training with several weeks of nonyoga–based physical training shows children randomly assigned to the yoga condition performed better on a standard problem-solving test used to assess cognitive function.

With these proven benefits in place, these activities are catching up in the schools as well.

This article in The Atlantic states “Schools have also begun experimenting with the practice and discovering that its techniques can help its students. When a school in New Haven, Connecticut, required yoga and meditation classes three times a week for its incoming freshman, studies found that after each class, students had significantly reduced levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, in their bodies. In San Francisco, schools that participated in Quiet Time, a Transcendental Meditation program, had twice as many students score proficient in English on the California Achievement Test than in similar schools where the program didn’t exist. Visitacion Valley Middle School specifically reduced suspensions by 45 percent during the program’s first year. Attendance rates climbed to 98 percent, grade point averages improved, and the school recorded the highest happiness levels in San Francisco on the annual California Healthy Kids Survey. Other studies have shown that mindfulness education programs improved students’ self-control, attentiveness and respect for other classmates, enhanced the school climate, and improved teachers’ moods.

I think there is enough scientific evidence to warrant the pairing of the words Meditation and Education. My wife who shares my passion of Education and is a long term practitioner of meditation has founded a licensed after school “Damara Kids” in Livermore to integrate Meditation with Education in a holistic way. She reports seeing improvements in the kids in less than two months she has been operating.

My desire is that more schools and child care centers adopt it in their curriculum and provide these invaluable techniques to children to thrive in the difficult yet enjoyable journey called Life.