Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children TPP 496: Dr. Ellen Braaten on Helping Teens and Tweens Discover What they Love to Do
Mar 24, 2026
Dr. Ellen Braaten, clinical psychologist and Harvard Medical School associate professor who studies ADHD and motivation, discusses why motivation is not fixed. She explains how identity, responsibility, and real-world experience fuel interest. Practical tools like values inventories and workbook activities help tweens and teens discover meaningful pursuits.
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Motivation Is Not A Fixed Trait
- Motivation is a dynamic skill that ebbs and flows with environment, biology, and support, not a fixed trait.
- Ellen Braaten notes motivation depends on opportunities for reward, learned helplessness, and life changes that alter drive.
Check Skills And Overwhelm First
- Check skill gaps, mental health, and overwhelm before labeling a child as lazy.
- Ellen Braaten recommends assessing abilities, anxiety or depression, and whether overwhelm or lack of responsibility is blocking action.
Use Real Jobs To Build Motivation
- Give teens real responsibility or work experience to spark motivation and ownership.
- Ellen cites jobs like coffee shops, mowing lawns, or pet care as motivational because they create responsibility and visible impact.
