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Writer's pictureSundance Canyon Academy

Top 10 Things To Help Motivate Teens

Updated: Nov 8

Trying to dream up motivation for teens can be a huge undertaking. You know what your kid needs to do, but they don’t seem to care. Now you’re finding ways to motivate them to follow through with their responsibilities without having to nag them all the time.

Some teens have a hard time with motivation due to mental health conditions like anxiety or depression. Children with a history of mental health problems or a traumatic past sometimes need extra help finding motivation. If your teenager needs additional support, they may benefit from professional therapy or residential treatment.

Otherwise, there are several teen motivation tips that you can try at home.

  1. Talk to them

  2. Identify what they enjoy

  3. Identify their goals

  4. Help them create plans

  5. Give them responsibility

  6. Link responsibility with freedom

  7. Help them de-stress

  8. Support their efforts

  9. Support a healthy lifestyle

  10. Teach them how to follow a schedule

Top 10 things to help motivate teens

There are a lot of teen motivation tips out there, so you might have to try a few to see what works for your kid.

If your teen isn’t motivated to do what you deem necessary, they are probably still motivated to do something else. Maybe they don’t focus on their schoolwork the way they need to, but they level up in their video games. Something drives their behavior, and you need to hone in on what they care about to increase their overall motivation.

Talk to your teen

Your teen’s behavior might seem lazy, but they could have more going on than you realize. Some teens who don’t complete their schoolwork have trouble with their classmates or are struggling with the material. They might be embarrassed to talk to you about what’s going on, so they ignore their responsibilities instead.

The number one teen motivation tip is: Make time to talk to your teen to find out what’s happening behind the scenes.

Identify what they enjoy

Take a moment to look at how your teen spends their time and identify what they enjoy. If they put their time into an activity of any sort, they appreciate that activity. You can identify why they enjoy it and help relate it to the rest of life.

Identify their goals

Teens have a tough time putting their goals into words, but understanding their goals is an excellent motivation for teens. Without a clear goal in mind, everything else seems foggy and irrelevant. Once they envision what they want, they can identify what it takes to get there.

Help them create plans

Goals without plans don’t get very far. Once you’ve helped your teen identify their goals, help them create specific strategies to work toward their goals. They will probably need help breaking large plans into small, manageable steps. If they feel like they can accomplish the steps and see progress in their goal, they’re more likely to stay motivated.

Give them responsibility

Some teens seem to lack motivation because they’re bored. If they aren’t being challenged, they can zone out because it seems like nothing matters. Teens need to know that they are important. Having responsibility and seeing the importance of responsibility can inspire unmotivated teens to take action.

Link responsibility with freedom

One of the best teen motivation tips is to link responsibility with freedom. When they follow through with their duties, they earn the freedom to do the things they want to do. When they don’t, they don’t.

Seeing and feeling the direct result of your actions can inspire teenage motivation like nothing else. This pairs exceptionally well with identifying and working on goals. Though you might have to “punish” your teen by taking away their freedom, you also get to reward them for following through with responsibility. Ideally, they will also see the results of their efforts in other parts of life as well.

Help them de-stress

It’s important to remember that teens have a lot going on, even when it seems like they don’t. They have to balance responsibilities at home, school, and extracurricular activities. They try to manage social relations, develop romantic interests, and have fun.

Teens can have a hard time focusing when they are overly stressed. Actively de-stressing can help with motivation for teens because it allows them to focus on the essential things.

Support a healthy lifestyle

Teens who don’t sleep enough and don’t eat healthy food can wear themselves out. Like being too stressed out to focus, teens can be too worn out to focus. When they don’t feel well, they aren’t going to be motivated to do anything they don’t want to do. Help your teen learn to go to bed, wake up at reasonable times, and maintain a healthy diet.

Support their efforts

At first, it might seem like your teen is barely making progress. Even when they aren’t as motivated as you would like, still support their efforts. If they’re genuinely trying to be more motivated and follow through with their responsibility, they need to know that you see it. If you still focus on what they’re doing wrong even though they’re trying to improve, they might just give up again.

Teach them how to follow a schedule

Many teenagers struggle with time management. They underestimate how long complex tasks will take and how long fun activities will take. So they accidentally spend longer than they mean to on fun activities. Then, they don’t leave enough time for challenging activities.

A significant teen motivation tip is teaching them how to follow a schedule to learn time management. You will probably need to help them set the schedule and rules around it. As they get better at time management, you shouldn’t have to intervene quite as much.

If your teen son struggles with mental health issues like ADHD, anxiety, or depression, he may need additional support. Many troubled teen boys see increased motivation after attending a residential treatment center where they receive a personalized therapy plan. Contact us today for more information and find out how our school could help your son.

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