#84: Three (recycled) Things that got me thinking

👪 Parenting wisdom special

Hello thoughtful reader,

This is the third and last of my August re-runs, where we revisit or discover old favourites. Here are Three Things that made me think about parenting and intrinsic motivation, and that I had already shared in previous posts, with insights from:

1. Parenting guru Janet Lansbury

2. Slate advice columnist Rebecca Onion

3. This Is Us matriarch Rebecca Pearson

You may also be interested in post #3 (one of my earliest pieces!) where I interview twin studies specialists about the origins of intrinsic motivation in children—that old nature/nurture question.

And last week, I published a juicy Q&A with motivation Johnmarshall Reeve about what teachers can do to help children’s intrinsic motivation flourish at school. Subscribe to receive part 2 straight into your inbox:

---

1. Parenting outcomes (from post #29)

If you frequent online parent groups (like I do), you’ve probably seen links to Janet Lansbury’s “respectful parenting” podcast episodes being passed on between worried mothers (yes, usually women) as precious remedial nuggets. I, too, have found solace in Lansbury’s words on wobbly days, and her suggestions have helped me to reframe hard situations.

So I was intrigued to know more about her own story, upbringing, and motivations in this recent profile by Ariel Levy for the New Yorker, where Lansbury says:

It’s not like I think I’m perfect, but I’m proud of how I am as a parent, and it’s a good feeling to have. [….] My whole goal is, I want people to believe in themselves that much.

janetlansbury

A post shared by Janet Lansbury (@janetlansbury)

In Lansbury’s world, respectful parenting roughly means giving children, from day one, the same level of respect you would give adults, meeting their needs, and stepping way back. It’s hard to tell if it works; a ‘good’ outcome will look different for different people anyway. But as Levy writes:

Lansbury, though, does not promise that her approach will lead to the best possible kid; what she’s selling is the best possible relationship.

We can find anecdotal clues in Lansbury’s own children. In one episode, her adult daughters Charlotte and Madeline reflect about growing up with (what Lansbury herself calls) “weird” parents. Their agreeing to talk publicly about their upbringing already seems like an endorsement; for what it’s worth, they also sound like well-adjusted, intrinsically motivated adults (full transcript here).

Here are two examples:

We were never made to do anything. […] I have friends now who say pretty confidently that looking back, they wish that their parents would have forced them to do the violin or some sport because now they would be really good at it. I strongly feel totally the opposite. It’s much more important to me that my parents raised me in a way that fostered the sense of: ‘we trust you to choose your activities and pursue […] your passion of the day’.

(around 20:49): Do we feel intrinsic motivation instead of doing things to seek approval? 100%. […] [My parents] kind of let school be my own territory, and whether or not I wanted to do an assignment was completely up to me. They realised that there were enough forces in effect at school [so that] you’ll be punished for a bad grade and you’ll be rewarded for a good one within that context.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

---

2. Misnaming (from post #62)

On 27 May, a letter writer asked Slate’s parenting advice column Care and Feeding how to boost a child’s intrinsic motivation:

My first grader lacks intrinsic motivation for… basically everything. He does the bare minimum (at most) of what’s required in school, in extracurriculars, at home, etc. He is a generally happy, playful, smart and athletic kid, so any natural consequences of this “bare minimum effort” haven’t caught up with him yet. Do you have any tips or tricks to inspire him to care more? I want to avoid nagging and creating only external motivators/demotivators (like rewards and consequences). How do I build his intrinsic motivation to try harder?

Who decides if and what he should “care more” about, or “try harder” at? What about leaving that “happy, playful, smart and athletic kid” be? Rebecca Onion says it with more panache when she urges the letter writer to “parent the child who is in front of you”:

Maybe he just hasn’t found the thing, yet, that presses him to put forth his maximum effort. Or maybe he never will! If he’s happy and healthy, and responsible and kind, does it matter?

More broadly: it isn’t totally oxymoronic (what a delightful word!) to try and foster another person’s intrinsic motivation from, well, the outside, in particular if that person is your child (or employee, or student). There are conditions that can help intrinsic motivation to flourish, which involve a good deal of stepping back.

But when I read another parent say about her daughter, who is struggling with her second-grade homework:

I hate feeling like I’m forcing her to do this extra work when I don’t believe there’s a real benefit to most of it, but I’m a rule follower and so, if the teacher assigns it, we make sure she does it. We’ve tried to build some intrinsic motivation in the form of being proud at being able to do hard things and persevering even when some tasks aren’t fun, etc., but I’m honestly not sure how much that’s helping.

… I get a little worried that “intrinsic motivation” is becoming a misnomer for “the will to do what we adults want them to do”.

Photo by Santi Vedrí on Unsplash

---

3. Yes Ma’am (from post #69)

I’ve just finished watching This Is Us, and I was not ready for the series to end. 😥

*SPOILER ALERT*

That heartbreaking quote from matriarch Rebecca Pearson, in episode 7 (and the rest of season 6), as she summons her adult children and lays out the law for the upcoming years of her life with Alzheimer’s:

Ron Batzdorff/NBC

My last request is less of a request and more of a demand, actually. […]

I need you all to hear my voice right now, your mother’s voice, with all of her faculties.

You will not make your lives smaller because of me.

This thing that’s happening to me will not be the thing that holds you back. So, take the risks. Make the big moves, even if they’re small moves. Forge ahead with your lives in any and every direction that moves you. I’m your mother and I’m sick, and I’m asking you to be fearless. And if that seems like that is a tall order, well, guess what, it is. But the only acceptable response is a resounding, “Yes, ma’am.”