Parenting is a constant task of guessing and calculating what to do with your little people, second-guessing what they are thinking and what methods of parenting will work best. When that cute little bundle of joy arrives in your life, they don’t come with a handbook tied to their foot, it’s just a case of use your initiative and follow your instincts.
Parenting advice
Each stage of parenting has its own challenges and at times like that I will often turn to the childminders and foster parents who I have befriended through local playgroups. After all, they look after A LOT of children so who better experienced?
One such childminder once said to me:
“It’s all about finding the right currency for each child?”
I went home and mulled over what she meant by that and I realised she was right. You need to find what it is about your child that motivates them and then you’ll have your leverage. When they are younger you can pretty much get by with stickers, sweets or a trip to the park but the older they get, the more the game changes.
Introducing Plain Sailing Youth Motivational Maps ®
A few weeks ago I was introduced to Sarah from Plain Sailing Motivation who offered to provide Youth Motivational Maps® for Curly and Little Bean.
Sarah is a motivation specialist and is a Licensed Practitioner of Motivational Maps®. Sarah’s motivation is to support others to she uses the Maps to help people to find out what motivates them and support them to understand what this means and how this can support them to achieve more through using simple strategies to maintain and improve their motivation.
Youth Motivational Maps
At some point during your late teens/adult life you will be asked to take a psychometric test, whether this be at school or in preparation for a job interview. Some people do them purely for fun or self-discovery. A psychometric test tells you about your personality and who you are but it is your motivation that gets you out of bed in the morning. A Motivational Map® report tells you what makes you ‘tick’, what drives you and puts the fire in your belly.
What do we need to do?
In order to produce the report you complete an online questionnaire which takes around 15 minutes. You are advised to not think too long over each answer, just pick the response which jumps out at you straight away. This will provide the most accurate report for you.
What happens next?
Once you have completed the questionnaire the results are sent to Sarah who will compile your report and arrange to meet with you (either F2F or via Skype) to develop your understanding of the nine motivators we all have, help you to understand your personal motivators and show you how to use your new knowledge to improve motivation and relationships. She will leave you with easy to implement strategies you can start to use every day. You can read the full explanation of Motivational Maps here.
What motivates us and why do we need the reports?
Curly
Curly is 15 years old and was finally diagnosed with ADHD. His time at school has not always been an easy one for him but since his diagnosis and implementation of medication, he is more settled and happy. Next year he will begin sitting exams and this can often be a stressful time for him and for his collective parents.
When I was at school and needed to revise I would sit and read, read, read for hours on end. I’m not totally sure how much of what I read went in but I was happy to try it. For Curly this isn’t the case . . .
Report findings
Purpose
His primary motivator is The Searcher which means he needs to have a purpose for what he is doing, to know that he is making a difference and his work is worthwhile. He wants to do something valuable with his time so completing repetitive and meaningless tasks will demotivate him. Sarah explained that Curly would do well to volunteer for charities or use his skills to mentor others. He needs to set himself timescales to complete tasks, say 15 minutes and then have a break and do something different.
Freedom
His second motivator is The Spirit which craves freedom, independence and the ability to make his own decisions. In order to motivate himself he needs to set himself plans for the future, where does he want to be in 1, 3 or 5 years’ time and what does he need to do to get there. For Curly to be constantly told what to do will seriously demotivate him, whereas giving him responsibility to manage himself or others will motivate him to achieve more. He prefers to work alone and will push to the limits to break out from the norm.
Belonging
His third motivator is The Friend. As a friend he has a need for belonging, friendship and fulfilling relationships. He likes to enjoy a good social life with loyalty and continuity being key values for him.
Lowest motivator
The report also shows you your lowest motivator as this can also give insight into how to be better motivated. Perhaps your lowest motivator is causing problems and needs addressing? For Curly, his lowest motivator is The Defender which suggests security, stability, planning and order are not important. He is likely to be irritated by people who prefer to play it safe. As a low Defender Curly needs to recognize the importance of planning and not rushing into decisions too quickly.
Reports for Individual, Parents and Mentor
One aspect that we really liked was that the Youth Motivational Maps® generate three reports all containing simple ways to support Curly. One to read himself, one for us to read as parents and one to provide to his school so that we can all see how we can help Curly to perform to the best of his abilities which is an extremely useful tool.
Little Bean
Little Bean will be 9 this Summer and is a bright and charming girl but her report was one that we felt we really needed as parents as she has the ability to elude us somewhat and her report was enlightening.
Report findings
Her key motivators as you can see above are Money, Security and Belonging.
Money
Little Bean’s primary motivator is The Builder which means that she is motivated by money, material satisfactions and is competitive, boy is she competitive!!! This is perhaps one aspect that she and I fall out on regularly as her competitiveness causes many arguments, particularly with Beanie Boy who is also ultra-competitive. Little Bean likes to know that she has more money than anyone else and that her belongings are better and worth more than everyone else’s. As parents this means that we can set her goals but she needs to know exactly what she will get out of it if she reaches that goal. As an example, Little Bean has been very lazy at learning her spellings and has been consistently getting less than 50% on her spelling tests. At the last test I told her that if she achieved more than 65/100 then I would buy her a small doll that she had been coveting. She worked so hard to learn her spellings, at home she got 83/100 but during the test at school she achieved 68/100 which was a huge improvement.
Security
Her second motivator is The Defender. As The Defender Little Bean likes security, certainty and stability. She is a creature of habit and is happy provided we follow the same routines, if we step out of line at all, it sends her world into chaos and she loses control. In order to motivate Little Bean as the Defender she needs to put plans into place for the future and she needs to ensure that she talks to people when she feels uncomfortable about a situation or when something is about to change. She needs to be organised with her personal effects so that she can refer to them easily and setting herself an hour a week to tidy her room will increase her output.
Belonging
Little Bean’s third motivator is The Friend which indicates that she needs a sense of belonging, friendship and fulfilling relationships just like Curly above.
Lowest motivator
The lowest motivator for Little Bean was The Star which means that it doesn’t bother her if she is not admired or respected for what she does. It’s like water off a duck’s back to her. As a result, she will avoid being the centre of attention and will be embarrassed at public praise and acknowledgement. Star charts have never worked for Little Bean – now we understand why!
What we learnt from the Motivational Maps
Having the Motivational Maps for the children has really given us a different way to look at them and encourage them to work to their strengths. With Curly we no longer set him long periods of time to ‘get on with his homework’, instead we will say “go and do {a} for 15 minutes in your room and then take a break”, after a short break we will suggest he sits in a different room and tackles a different project. The result of this method has meant more focused time spent doing homework, leading to better output from him. Over the last few weeks we have also noticed that Curly will now do this for himself and has become much more motivated with his work.
With regards to Little Bean, we now set her specific tasks and tell her “if you do this, you will receive a counter towards this”. A few months ago, before the Motivational Reports I started a reward scheme with the Beans whereby they earn coloured counters for good behaviour or helping and kindness to others. When they have earned 10, 25 and 40 counters they get small prizes/rewards for their efforts. This has been an effective reward system which they love. We have found with Little Bean that if she knows what her next reward will be, she will work harder to earn her counters to get her prize faster. This of course, is a win-win situation for all of us.
Motivational Mapping Reports for Everyone
At Plain Sailing, Sarah provides Motivational Mapping reports for young people and their parents like she did for us, Schools and Colleges to help motivate and engage students for better results, Individuals who are interested to find out more about themselves and Organisations. Do you have a team which just doesn’t seem to ‘gel’? Getting motivational reports for a team will help you to see who is motivated in their position and who isn’t and will help identify, understand and resolve any conflict. It could be just the key you need to get that team working on all cylinders as well as reducing staff turnover, increasing engagement and reducing sickness.
Special offer for Mummy Matters readers
Do you think that Motivational Reports could make a different in your life, that of your child or in the workplace? For a limited time only Plain Sailing are offering Mummy Matters readers £25 off their Motivational Report if you book before 31st May 2017, just quote ‘Mummy Matters’ when booking.
£25 Discount when you quote
‘Mummy Matters’
before 31st May 2017
To find out more about the difference Motivation Maps can do for you, check out their website or connect via their social media accounts.
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