Why small incentives work

What we covered:

– Most kids are not intrinsically motivated to do the hard things: practice their soccer drills, do their math homework, eat their broccoli. Getting them to do the hard things often requires gamification and/or incentives.

– A little gamification goes a long way. Jason gamified drills for his kids’ soccer team to get the most out of each practice (e.g., “zombie attack”), and it was unreasonably effective. XP and leaderboards on Math Academy are also unreasonably effective.

– A good incentive can change kids' behavior overnight. The incentive doesn’t need to be big; it just needs to be something the kid really cares about. Find the thing the kid would rather be doing, and use it to motivate them to do what they’re supposed to be doing. They won’t need the incentive forever; as the kid gets used to the feeling of a new behavior, it gradually turns into a habit that they can maintain on their own.

– Even when you’re doing what you love, there will be grindy phases. But kids typically don’t understand this. They might get interested in a talent domain and want to become good enough to build a life around it, while simultaneously resisting doing the hard work to make that happen (i.e., stage 2 in Bloom’s talent development process). It’s often up to parents, who can see the long game, to push their kids through the difficult parts in paths that they find rewarding.

– For instance, the most mathematically gifted student Justin ever worked with, who was drawn into math by his own intrinsic interest, still needed to be pushed to learn calculus. Now he’s having the time of his life working on physics-y, calculus-heavy research-level math problems in high school. Even after finding something he loves and is good at, he still needed to be pushed to do the hard work to unlock more of it.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Most kids are not intrinsically motivated to do hard things – homework, drills, practice. They usually need incentives to get through.

00:08:16 - A little gamification goes a long way. Jason gamified drills for his kids’ soccer team to get the most out of each practice (e.g., “zombie attack”).

00:14:05 - A good incentive can change behavior overnight. It doesn’t need to be big, just something the kid really cares about, and they won’t need it forever. It’s about building a habit until they can maintain it on their own.

00:41:17 - The stress of high school

00:54:16 - The most mathematically gifted student Justin ever worked with needed to be pushed to learn calculus, and now he's having the time of his life working on calculus-heavy research-level math problems.

01:11:54 - Even when you’re doing what you love, there will be grindy phases. It’s important for parents to help kids push through those grindy phases so that they can unlock more of what they love.

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