35 Reasons Why Your Child Might Not be Motivated

As I've worked with thousands of homeschoolers, I've developed a checklist of reasons why homeschoolers may be lazy, lackadaisical, or unmotivated couch potatoes resistant to learning. Many times, motivation is affected by technology. You can read my article and find out more about how technology affects your home in, Balanced Technology in Home Education, an excerpt from my book Technologic: How to Set Logical Technology Boundaries and Stop the Zombie Apocolypse.

Look over this list, and see if you can further evaluate why your teen is causing you grief right now.

1. ​Do they feel their work has value?
2. Do they believe work will be rewarded?
   
3. Do they believe they are treated fairly? 
4. Do their peers expect motivation? 
5. Are you coddling or overprotecting? 
6. Are you allowing excessive laziness?
7. Lack of sleep?
8. Lack of exercise?
9. Poor nutrition?
10. Sugar rush and sugar crash?
11. Lack of hydration?
12. Vision problems?
13. Hearing problems?
14. Attention problems?
15. Medically-caused fatigue?
16. Undiagnosed learning disabilities?
17. Overuse of technology?
18. Hormonal changes?
19. Becoming more independent?
20. Depression?
21. Drug use?
22. Bullying or being bullied?
23. Sexual activity?
24. Involved in sexting or pornography?
25. Anorexia?
26. Psychological issues?
27. Curriculum mismatch?
28. Lack of interesting subjects?
29. Over emphasis on school?
30. Are you doing school-at-home instead of homeschooling?
31. Learning style mismatch?
32. Gifted and not challenged?
33. Struggling and challenged too much?
34. Unreasonable expectations?
35. Cheating or lying?

​Remember that your goal is a general love of learning. You can't make them "love math" or "love writing" but you can help them to not hate it, so they can retain their general love of learning.

Need more help? I have a motivation section in my online resource High School Solution.