Laziness is the most common characteristic that your growing children and teenagers might display. They might be reluctant to finish their schoolwork. There are plenty of ways to motivate your child.
Lazy kids may grow into unhealthy and unsuccessful adults if left untreated. If the signs are laziness are transient, then nothing much to worry about it. If the kids exhibit this behavior more often for longer times it needs proper attention to avoid further effects.
This article discusses about parenting a lazy child. It presents the ways and tips to deal with the lazy child and making lazy child active.
What Makes A Child Lazy:
Here are the few things that throw your kid to become lazy.
1. Discouraged or Overwhelmed:
Children feel unmotivated and lazy when they are confused about where to start. This confusion leaves them in a stressful situation making them lazy.
2. Forced to do something:
When the kids are forced to do something they don’t like they display their laziness. They will end up being frustrated and angry.
3. Low self esteem:
Kids with low self esteem avoid doing the activities feeling that they are out of their scope. These kids make themselves engaged in self defeating behavior. Help them to achieve the activities and guide them on how to tolerate the difficulties.
4. Negative Influence:
Children easily get influenced by the people around them in school and at the home. Negative influences like bullying may make your kid lazy.
5. Conflicting environment at Home:
Children who grow in the conflicting home environment where their parents often fight may make them afraid and lone. This kind of children have less attachment with the parents and spend most of the time alone and lazy.
6. More Screen Time:
Screen intervention makes the kids lazy. These kids face many problems academically and socially. Kids who spend most of the time in front of the screens are at the risk of being affected by depression, bipolar disorder, and ADHD.
How To Motivate A Lazy Child:
Here are the few tips to deal with the lazy child:
1. Offer Choices:
Offering your kid the choices instead of issuing the commands. Frame your choices in the interesting manner which works well to deal with the lazy child.
For example ask your child that would you like to play with your friends in the park? Or would you like to take the tommy for a walk. These kind of questions give your kid the the freedom while guiding them in a right path.
2. Encourage outdoor play:
This is one of the best ways to make lazy child active. Encourage your kids to play outdoors especially in green settings. Nature helps the kid to nurture their emotions. Outdoor play offers the kids many benefits like learning, creativity, social skills, secures their emotional well being.
Outdoor play encourages the kids to come out of their boundaries and gain good risk assessment skills.
3. Boost Up their Confidence levels:
Always appreciate their efforts irrespective of results. Keep your kid away from the vibrations of discouragement and fear which are the obstacles for confidence. Don.’t criticize your children for the failures treat them as the building blocks for the success.
Give your kid new challenges and encourage them to build competence. Let them sort out and solve the problems their own.
4. Offer Rewards for Finishing Home work:
Teach your kids on how to complete their before going out for enjoyable activities. Don’t offer rewards to your kid till they finish the homework. Don’t make this activity a stressful. If your kid does better when they listen to the music, play some pleasant music.
Review once they finish their homework. Help them to deal with the difficult tasks they face while doing homework.
5. Let them learn the value of things:
Make your kid to understand the value of things. Don’t simply grant them the rewards on throwing tantrums. Raise the allowance for them as a reward for the tasks they have completed. This will help them to learn the financial responsibility.
6. Make Learning an interesting thing:
Interest is the best tool to wipe off the laziness in your kid. Interest helps them to explore and learn new things. Help your kid to recognize their interests by involving them in group activities and taking them on vacations for holidays.
The best way to know their interests is staying connected with them. Punishments or yelling at the kids may have short term or long term effects on your kid and they do nothing to create interest in your child.
7. Set Expectations:
Convey your expectations in a clear way such that they should be able to understand what they needs to do to reach your expectations.
Don’t push your kid into the heavy chores. Plan and list some age appropriate activities which help them to learn something like watering plants, keeping the things in living room in organized manner etc.
8. Provide encouraging and secure environment:
Teach your kids the value of learning and academic skills. Many kids feel afraid to fail. Some may fear of their parents response towards their failure. Let them know that failures are common and part of life, we should learn lessons from the failures. Let them fail without receiving any penalty. Kids who have no fear towards their failures can face the challenges in the academic life.
Encourage your kids to work on their drop offs. Assist them to cope up with the negative emotions.
9. Identify any underlying causes:
Identify the root causes for their lazy attitude. Problems at home, bullying at school may be the reasons for the kids being unmotivated. If any learning disabilities are left untreated they may lead to laziness.
Speak to your kid directly to identify the triggers and help them overcome those discouraging things. If you notice any kind of problems like trouble reading, listening and following the instructions speak to your child’s doctor.
10. Encourage the physical activity:
Children who lack in in physical activities are may be poor at catching a ball, hitting a baseball, or kicking a soccer ball. If you find that your child is feeling shy for not being good at those activities, try the activities which makes them more comfortable.
Keep a bunch of activities like swimming, hiking, bike riding, skate boarding in front of your kid and ask them to choose.
11. Build on Strengths:
Identify the activities in which your kid excels. Constant failures may make your kid weak and they further decreases their self esteem and self confidence. If your kid can find success in non academic setting help them to overcome the obstacles in order to achieve the success.
Help your child with patience, love and affection to gain achievement in academic and non academic setting.
12. Teach Problem solving Skills:
A child who lacks in problem solving skills lacks in social skills as well. Child with poor social skills don’t know how to make friends, speak with the people and friends. They don’t have the problem solving skills to figure out the behavior of the other people and behave accordingly.
Lack of problem solving skills may make the kid either rude or lag behind. Teach your kid the problem solving skills by picking a problem and asking them to write at least five solutions to solve the problem. Help your kid in finding out the answers.
13. Limit the Screen Time:
Limit the interaction of your kid with the electronic media like phones, laptops or TVs. Electronic devices makes your kid lazy by reducing their outdoor play time. Set the limitations on the time that they spend in front of electronic media. Avoid the screen time before they go to bed. Screen time may make the kids sensitive to the content watched on the screens.
14. Encourage your kids involved in cooking:
Allow your kids to do small activities in kitchen like washing and chopping the vegetables. Ask them to organize the food items on the table. Let your kid to voluntarily involve in activities like washing their own plate, arranging their snack box for school. Appreciate your kids for the effective use of their time towards worthy things.
15. Promote Creativity:
Promote creativity in your child by encouraging them to do crafts. Arts enhances the motor skills, creativity, confidence and many other beneficial skills.
Always make the plenty of crayons, colored papers and other craft supplies available at home.
16. Encourage a growth Mindset:
Let your child to believe in their abilities. Praising your child for their intelligence restricts their further growth. Instead praise them for the efforts and hard work they invested in finishing the task. While praising give them the feedback using the gentle phrases.
Experience your child with your real stories about when you worked hard to achieve success. Model yourself as a role model for your kids.
17. Let them Sleep Properly:
Restlessness is one of the main root cause for the laziness. Kid with insufficient sleep rarely shows interest in academic and non academic activities. Help your child to adopt proper sleep timings.
18. Assign them real responsibilities:
You can assign your kid the real responsibilities by allowing them to schedule their daily routine and follow accordingly. Encourage them to finish their daily tasks in time and be cautious while offering them the rewards.
19. Never let your kids feel bored:
Help your kids to relieve stress and engage in some entertaining activities. Handle their boredom effectively. Boredom in the child is sometimes recognized as the parents neglect. Schedule some activities like exercise, swimming, meditation etc with your kids to have a quality time with them.
20. Take your kids Grocery Shopping!
This activity allows kids to explore something new. Taking your kids grocery shopping gives them an opportunity to learn many things like social skills, good food, advertising and labeling etc. Grocery shopping helps to keep your lazy kid active.
21. Pick a right school for his needs:
Pick a school matching the specific needs of your child. For example, if you think that your child needs to learn some physical activities, then choose a school which encourages sports along with the academics.
22. Stop Judging Your Kid:
No one will be perfect at the academics. Nurture a healthy environment around your child rather judging them for a poor performance.
Fallbacks are most common, the only way to deal with it is to help your kid recognize what happens when unprepared. Give your kid the healthy push and offer great learning environment by letting your kid know and improve where they are lacking.
22. Show Faith Instead of Concern:
It is one of the most encouraging feeds that the parents can offer their children. Use some gentle phrases.
23.Don’t use criticizing Tone:
Criticizing is a sign of disapproving all the actions of your kid which makes them discouraged and negative all the time. This restricts the kids from doing any activities and makes them lazy.
Don’t compare your kid with their peers which further decreases their confidence levels.
Effects of Laziness on child Development:
Laziness imparts many adverse effects on children’s physical and mental development in long run.
Here are the few effects of laziness on kid’s academic and personal life:
- A lazy kid lags in academics with low grades.
- Lazy kids are reluctant to play outdoor games
- They have poor social skills, this makes them to stay away from the parties
- They are physically inactive which throws them into the risk of being affected by obesity, and stress.
- Lazy kids spend most of their time in front of screens leading to the visual impairments at the early stage.
- They often fail to meet the minimum targets at school and at home.
- Lazy kids are poor at making and building successful relationships
- They are unlikely to develop hygiene habits
Help your kids to overcome the laziness and plant the seeds for their successful career. 23 ways mentioned in the article to raise a lazy kid works well to make tour child active.
