Before you start reading this article, let me ask a favour – look at the title again. What do you think of when you think about ‘Motivating Reluctant Learners’?

Many of us would say that we know about the reluctant learner, and perhaps we might even be able to talk about how we have had to deal with at least one of them in our lifetime.

You might remember a disruptive classmate back in your schooldays, or a kid whom you tried to tutor, or even your own child when you attempt to convince him or her to concentrate on studying!

If so, this article is for you.

However, our article is not about the learners, but about what it takes to motivate them. This is the crucial focus. To motivate learners, dads can start with discovering useful motivators. We can begin by understanding what motivates us.

Many Singapore dads have tried playing golf; there are driving ranges and golf courses all over our little island. If you are one of them, you will be familiar with the following scenario:

When you first take up golf, it is through a curiosity about the game, and some persuasion from a friend. He takes you to a driving range and shows you a few swings of the golf club, as he explains a few foreign-sounding concepts. Then you step up and try it for yourself. After a few awkward adjustments you feel as if you’re able to swing the club pretty well.

What comes next is the ball. Just when you think you’ve got your swing going nicely, and you make a swing at the ball, the ball does not go anywhere! How demoralising! The question now becomes, what motivates you to try again?

The first thing is fun. The reason you are at the driving range in the first place is because of the promise of a good time, and because you see that the golfers around you look like they enjoy the activity.

Other reasons to keep trying have to do with perception - because the sounds made by the swinging of the club and impact with the ball are so impressive, and the sight of a well-struck ball heading more than 100 meters away to land gently on target fires your imagination. What’s more, the feel of striking the ball can be simply addictive.

Without these reasons, I guarantee that the new golfer would give up at the first sign that golf is going to be difficult to master.

For reluctant learners, there are two reasons for their resistance to learning - because they cannot imagine having fun learning, and because they simply are not in the mood.

Like the friend who convinced you to take up golf or try something new, the key to motivating a reluctant child is to persuade them that they will find something useful or enjoyable in it, and to persuade them to do something in spite of how they are feeling at the moment.

Here are three tips to motivating reluctant learners:

1) Understand what they want.

2) Coach them.

3) Set a good example.

There are also three common missteps to avoid with reluctant learners:

1) Using bribes.

2) Praising them for the wrong reason.

3) Forgetting what motivates them.

Understand What a Child Wants:

In motivating a child, it is safe to assume that the first thing that they want is to feel competent and secure. They want to feel like they can do something well enough to be able to enjoy it.

Remember the driving range example? Imagine if your friend brought you to the range for your first-time experience, and the only people at the range were a group of golf professionals.

It would be difficult to find motivation into taking the first steps to learn the sport on a day like that. You would feel awkward and insecure. Likewise, a child must feel safe in order want to try learning, because learning is a process that involves making mistakes. Nobody naturally or automatically enjoys that!

Hence, the first steps your child takes in learning need to be in an environment that is safe and secure enough to build confidence. When I tutor, one of the strategies I personally use with a child, who shows reluctance to learn, is to offer a choice of topics and exercises to do for the first 20 minutes of lessons, and allow the student to pick her favourite one to start with.

Often - if not always - the child will choose an exercise he or she is already good at, and it is a good start to spend at least 10 to 20 minutes allowing the child to take on his favourite or preferred exercises.

At this point you can use the opportunity to give encouragement to any sign of logical thinking. You can also ask questions and challenge his or her answers, working together to conquer more complex questions and challenges.

What your child wants most is to succeed, and to feel that he can succeed. This can be addictive, but in a good way.

Coach Him:

Coaching a child usually involves a few stages. In the first stage, I generally get the student to look at a challenging problem or question together, using at least two strategies. I personally like to use a combination of illustrations and reading aloud when teaching English, for example.

Using a mixture of strategies to look at a problem minimises the chance of misunderstanding the question or the information presented. Your child gets to practice looking at a problem from different angles.

In the second stage, the task is quite clear for the parent or teacher – to find strengths in the child’s response to the question. If you’re teaching a type of Mathematics problem, for example, try to understand the extent to which your child grasps the problem, then identify what he or she already knows. Acknowledge this skill clearly, so that your child can sense success.

If your child is not meeting your expectations, the temptation would be to remind him that he has a long way to go, but that kind of direct challenge to a child can be saved for a later stage, and not what the point when the objective is to build your child’s motivation to learn.

In the final stage, it is once again our job – to track progress and use praise and reward. For this to have impact you have to know your child’s likes and dislikes.

A word of caution here, praise is only effective when it is specific enough, say, if you notice that your child has concentrated on his work for more than 10 minutes when his usual span is barely half of that.

That is the time when you say something like, “Son, you have been concentrating for 10 minutes straight. I haven’t seen that before, keep it up and you are doing great!”

Likewise, reward is just as tricky. Avoid using rewards to bribe a child. In other words, do not promise something to a child in order to get her to do a learning task.

Instead, catch the child doing something right, specifically praise the child, then give the child a reward. The reward could be anything from a snack break, to a promise to take him out for a special treat on the weekend, or even a play opportunity. You should know what rewards your child loves the most!

Our final tip for motivating a reluctant learner is one that we believe dads are frequently in the position to do best, especially if you are the sole breadwinner.

Set a Good Example:

In this task, we present you with a great opportunity. If you are a working father, (aren't most dads?) you can prepare for this task by bringing a simple and manageable amount of work home with you on a day that you are going to be coaching and spending time getting your child motivated to learn.

Set up your workstation next to your child, and once you are done with coaching and your child has begun to study or do homework on her own, settle down next to her and begin your task. Obviously, allowing your child to see you at work will help her to model a good work attitude. Of course, if you dislike your work, then you might want to skip this step.

The best aspect of following this last tip is that it accomplishes the three tips all at once. You are giving the child your attention, coaching by demonstration, and setting an excellent example of how adults behave when they are doing “homework”.

Dads can definitely do a lot to help turn a reluctant learner into a keen lifelong learner.

Discuss this issue, or share your experiences or tips in our forum.

About the Author: The DadsforLife Resource Team comprises local content writers and experts, including psychologists, counsellors, educators and social service professionals, dedicated to developing useful resources for dads.