Robin Hurd

Motivating Your Child

by Robin Hurd

A parent asked, “How can I motivate my child to initiate conversations?” Another question which I believe is related is, “How can I prevent the school from teaching learned helplessness?” We will address both of these questions together.

As adults, we are often under the false assumption that language is about communication. We are wrong. Language is about power. What our children need to see more than anything is that their AAC method is powerful: more powerful than a single scream… Able to stop a grown-up in a single bound… Well, you get the idea!

In order for that device to be power for our child, it must allow the child to say what a child wants to say (not just what the teacher’s curriculum wants to hear!). Can your child talk about whatever he wants to at school, or just the teacher’s current activity? If he is left with only the current activity, he is powerless. What then is the motivation for him to activate his device, much less initiate?

Another assumption that we make about children is that their job is to do what we want them to at all times. Other names for this are passivity, or learned helplessness. Often passivity is considered desirable in special education classrooms, but here is what Oliver Sacks, neurologist and author, says about it:
“Poor dialog, communication defeat…leads to…timidity and passivity; creative dialog, a rich communicative interchange in childhood, awakens the imagination and mind, and leads to a self-sufficiency, a boldness, a playfulness, a humor, that will be with the person for the rest of his life.”
So if passivity is not a child’s job, what is it? Simply put, a child’s job is to test the limits and do what he can to drive the adults crazy! It’s all about power.

Having said this, I must clarify that I am not an advocate of letting children run wild. Children need to know very clearly what the limits on their behavior are. What I am saying is, “What fun is life if I can’t explore and see what life’s possibilities are?”

So how does this affect our kids’ motivation? If our children are going to learn to initiate, they must have a reason to initiate. This starts with choices. I learn very quickly how powerful I am (or am not) by whether I get to choose things that affect me. Too often this choice is taken from our disabled kids. “They can’t feed themselves, so why should I let them pick what they eat? I’ll just mix the hot dogs, macaroni salad, and peas all together, because it is easier for me.” So goes the thinking in too many environments. How does your child then feel? Powerless. “Why bother to try to tell this adult anything—she doesn’t even care that I don’t like my food all mixed together!”

Learning that they do have some say over their life motivates our kids to tell us what they think. If I know I can select my own breakfast, and if occasionally Mom lets me eat the leftover spaghetti instead of regular breakfast food, I begin to see the power of my communication! When I am able to tell the teacher that I don’t like the activity she picked for me, and she tells me that I can choose something else today, and do that activity later, I see a reason to talk!

Only after your child has learned that she has the power to make choices can she move on to the next level--- Initiating an interaction herself. In order to initiate, a child must have 2 things: the ability to get someone’s attention and something she really wants to say. One fun way to accomplish both of these is to program in a “shocker” for your child. Do you remember when your verbal child first heard the neighbor kid say a new and exciting word with forcefulness, and brought it home? That first use of a four-letter word sure got your attention, didn’t it? (Don’t stop reading yet, I am not advocating putting cuss words on the device!) My point is simply this: a “shocker” gives your child a lot of power on his device to initiate an interaction with others.

What makes a good “shocker”? It may be a nonsense word, or a bit of the child’s favorite song, a loud burp, spooky halloween noise, or the phrase, “pay attention to me!” The important thing is that your child likes it, and that it has a bit of shock value, to make others stop and pay attention. Introducing a ‘shocker” to a child who is hesitant or not motivated by the things on her device may give her a sudden burning desire to initiate an interaction!

Should you choose to do this, forewarn the teachers, grandparents or whoever else the child may talk with, so that they know that the point of this is that the child started the conversation. It’s okay to exaggerate your surprise. It is especially okay to laugh and enjoy the sudden joke (even if you don’t quite get the punch line! I still don’t understand the fascination boys have with burps, but it is funny to watch them.) Eventually the “shocker” will lose its fun and your child will begin to find other things to talk about.

So what do we do about the learned helplessness that so often happens to our kids through “the system?” Teach the teachers how to respect our children’s ability to make choices. Show them how to make language powerful for your child. Slowly, class by class, we will change things for our own kids and others to come.

Please, consider sharing your experiences. As always, I love to hear from you! E-Mail parents@aacinstitute.org.