Gifted children love a challenge, so by turning otherwise dull homework into a challenging game, you can get your child to do it. Some children like to race, so you can ask them to see how quickly they can get it done—without mistakes. Checking their work lets them see you care about it.
Strategies for Promoting Motivation in Gifted Learners
Provide choices to increase motivation. Establish long- and short-term goals. Give pre-tests to ensure students are encountering new material. Teach students to be organized so they know what teachers expect of them.
Everyday activities like playing, reading and using educational websites can help your child explore new interests and develop talents. Structured activities like trips to galleries, music lessons or sports camps can also extend your child's learning and develop talents.
Gifted students are often more intrinsically motivated than other students, at least when it comes to academic and intellectual activities.
Students who feel that they don't have a voice in what they are learning tend to eventually tune out. Some feel it is a lack of respect for their passions. In addition, if tasks are monotonous or not authentic/vigorous enough, students may not see the value in them. This could lead to a lack of motivation.
4: FOUR INTRINSIC REWARDS: MEANINGFULNESS, CHOICE, COMPETENCE, AND PROGRESS - Intrinsic Motivation at Work, 2nd Edition [Book]
Most gifted children enjoy learning new things. Not only do they enjoy intellectual activity but they also may display intellectual playfulness. They likely prefer books and magazines meant for older children and adopt a skeptical, critical and evaluative attitude.
Ideally, gifted students require three components to maximize their potential: a safe and flexible learning environment, proper academic rigor, and dual focus on social-emotional learning.
Raising a profoundly gifted child is no different. However, the types of challenges may be. Generally, these children require more intellectual stimulation, even as infants, than other children do, but most families are able to respond adequately to this need in babyhood and the toddler years.
Gifted children are challenging to parent in many ways. The more gifted the child, the more often it seems the more the parent is frustrated with the discrepancy of someone able to do school several levels above age level but unable to remember to take their finished work to school.
"At first, children like to help others because it helps them get what they want. Next, they do so because they get praise. Finally, they begin to anticipate the needs of others, and it becomes intrinsically rewarding to do nice things for people in their lives."
Gifted children are natural learners who often show many of these characteristics: They may show keen powers of observation and a sense of the significant; they have an eye for important details. They may read a great deal on their own, preferring books and magazines written for children older than they are.
The Importance of a Growth Mindset for Students
When children believe that their abilities can be developed, they can then understand that their natural intelligence and talent are just the beginning. They can work toward whatever goals they have and develop the skills and qualities that they aspire to possess.
Socioeconomic status, the level of household income, can have a distinct effect on student development. Students from homes with a higher income level are much more likely to be identified as gifted than children who live beneath the poverty level.
Gifted trauma stems from childhood issues with feeling like you don't belong anywhere because of your gift. Bullying, starving for mental stimulation, school mismatch, and other issues specific to the life experience of the gifted child may also contribute both to the main mental health issue and gift-specific trauma.
But it turns out that each one of us is primarily triggered by one of three motivators: achievement, affiliation, or power. This is part of what was called Motivation Theory, developed by David McClelland back in 1961.
The Seven Motivators
These 7 motivators are: Aesthetic, Economic, Individualistic, Political, Altruistic, Regulatory, Theoretical.
Pretty much all of the motivating factors out there can be distilled into six core types: incentive, achievement, social acceptance, fear, power, and growth.