​Are you looking for a way to motivate an unmotivated student? Do you find your child uninterested in learning and can't get them to do their school work? Well, I just might have the answer to solving this problem!
Have you ever sat in a boring class as an adult, watched a movie that was not interesting to you at all, or read a book that was not at all what you had hoped for? The first thing you do is disengage your mind, look for a better movie, or donate the book to Goodwill, right? Your children respond the same way when they are faced with boring curriculum and topics that don't intrigue their curiosity. Every person is unique. We all have different talents, abilities, and characteristics that make us individual from each other. Yet, we find that when it comes to learning we try to put our kids in the same boxed education that worked for their sibling or for our friends' kids - who are really smart and well behaved so naturally it will make our kids like theirs if we use the same curriculum. If your child is unmotivated and uninterested in learning then maybe that "box" or curriculum doesn't fit their learning style or giftedness. If this is the case then maybe a change is necessary.
My 12 year old son loves learning but only about things that interest him. Instead of pushing a history curriculum on him and making him hate learning I am allowing his interests to guide his history studies this year. As long as he stays within the genre of history, all doors are open to him. My only rule is that it has to be something he has never read or watched before. He can find a book, watch a movie or research about a history topic that interests him. He loves that HE gets to choose the history topics and he loves that he can control his learning! This approach is called delight-directed learning. We are doing the same approach with science but he has to stay within the topic of Astronomy. Each school day he works through his school chart and checks off each subject as he completes them. - this chart is available as a free download on my website.
This delight-directed approach to learning has been like the magic wand to Cinderella's ball gown. No complaining, no dragging his feet, no nagging him to get school done. Instead, I find him searching on Prime for a good history documentary or scouring our book shelves for something that piques his interest. Learning can and should be fun! If you find your child is not engaging in school as you had hoped, then maybe choosing one or two subjects that he/she can do using a delight-directed approach is the answer to solving this problem.