Upbringing and Self-Determination
In the words of author and psychologist Asa Don Brown, “Children, especially in the early years, are like little sponges, absorbing all the information around them and then actively making sense of it.”
You could also argue that children are a lot like mirrors in the way they reflect to us all we say and do. Essentially, what children see and hear, they do, and a culmination of every action they take is who they become.
A child’s upbringing and the way in which they’re raised will undoubtedly play a big role in how they live their life, but this is not something they have any control over. Instead, children should be nurtured and taught that they have the overwhelming power to control their own destiny and they aren’t simply just products of their environment.
In psychology, this concept is called self-determination, referring to each person’s ability to feel they control their choices and their lives. Self–determination also has a powerful impact on motivation – people feel more motivated to act when they feel that what they do will affect the outcome.
This theory suggests that people – none more so children, even if they don’t yet realise it – are motivated to grow and change by three innate and psychological needs: competence, connection and autonomy.
Internal and External Motivation
The self-determination theory is made up of two key assumptions; the first being that the need for growth drives behaviour. It assumes that people are actively directed toward growth, and that learning and experiencing new things is essential for developing a sense of self.
The second is that autonomous motivation is important. While people, especially children, can be motivated to act and achieve by external rewards such as prizes, money and acclaim (referred to as extrinsic motivation), the self-determination theory focuses more on internal motivation such as a need to gain knowledge or independence (known as intrinsic motivation).
Children taught and nurtured to become self-determined, learn how to act and how to react during testing situations.
Levels of Self-Determination
Say there’s a young student who does not complete an important project at school. If this student is low in self-determination, they might make excuses, lay blame on others, or refuse to admit their own role in the situation. They won’t feel motivated to right their wrong and will likely feel helpless to control the situation believing that nothing they can do will have any effect.
If that same student was high in self-determination, instead they will admit their fault, believe that they can do something to fix the problem and correct the mistake. It’s important to note, however, that the psychological state of self-determination doesn’t happen automatically.
While some people might be naturally orientated toward such growth, achieving self-determination, especially for school-aged children, requires continual sustenance and persistence. Furthermore, we can either foster or thwart well-being and personal growth through our relationships and interactions with others.
This could either be particularly comforting or worrying depending on a child’s social circle given how impressionable kids are in their younger years. Don’t bother asking, “if your friend jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?”, because you already know what their sarcastic response will be.
Self-Determination as a Way of Living
Self-determination shouldn’t be thought of as a strategy to increase the chances of children achieving good grades at school or to give them motivation to do their homework. It’s so much more than that.
Children who learn self-determination from an early age will not only draw on it for their academics, but also when they’re chasing the ball on the sporting field, when they’re applying for their first job, when they’re buried in assignments at university and when they one day start raising their own families.
Self-determination should therefore be considered a way of living that once learned will likely be utilised in all aspects of that person’s life moving forward. Describing someone’s motivation to achieve certain goals, however, often can’t simply be classified as either extrinsic or intrinsic.
Although extrinsic and intrinsic motivation are separate and distinct, behaviour is complex, and people are rarely driven to act by a single source of motivation. People often draw on multiple sources of motivation in pursuit of a goal.
For example, if a child is running for class captain, they might be extrinsically motivated by a desire to gain approval from their peers as well as intrinsically motivated by the satisfaction they’ll gain from holding the role itself.
It’s often helpful to view motivation as a continuum between self-determined and non-self-determined behaviours rather than just being driven by either extrinsic or intrinsic rewards.
Self-Determined Behaviours
Purely self-determined behaviours are often intrinsically driven and are done for enjoyment and interest, while on the other end of the continuum are non-self-determined behaviours which are done only because they must be done. This is on the extreme end of the scale where there is a complete lack of control.
For the most part, behaviours tend to lie somewhere in the middle of the continuum. Further, the amount of external motivation associated with a task can also influence the degree of a child’s internal motivation.
The definition of success differs from person to person and changes over time. Success, however, shouldn’t be considered the be all and end all, especially for children. What’s more important in the long run is that children are taught and understand that they are important, they have control over their lives, and that what they do matters.
