By: Hamayun Khan
When a child is born there is within that child an inborn need to interact with the environment. These interactions lead to learning and acquisition of knowledge and abilities. The motivation that drives this learning is based merely within the child and requires no outside rewards for its continuation. This motivation has been seen as humans, inherent intrinsic motivation to learn, as children reach school age however many have not seen to process this interest in learning.
Along with numerous complications in Afghanistan, hesitation, lack of confidence and stage fear are the substantial issues that the majority of Afghan teenagers have been confronting with, and these problems have influenced numerous young talents who have had ample of skills that have been kept hidden inside by those children, due to the lack of outside motivation and encouragement which is supposed to be facilitated to them is unfortunately very less.
In this article, I have covered a few important issues, that almost each and every afghan kid has been facing, since very long.
Essential or Intrinsic motivation is made up of three basic psychological needs that are considered to be innate in human beings:
- Need for competence
- Need for relatedness
- Need for self-determination
- Need for competence:
This need is all about how to achieve various outcomes and goals and having the belief that you are capable of obtaining those goals. Competence is also thought to be the ability to perform something successfully, thus children have the right to be provided with any kind of facilities to do so.
- Need for relatedness:
this involves the ability to develop a secure and stable relationship with others in a social concept. There are many youths who are introvert and have been confined to a very limited circle of friends, and such youths are considered to be way too much restricted to the outer world.
such sort of people are repeatedly ignored because society thinks these people are mentally disturbed, but indeed it is absolutely wrong, these people are in a huge need of being socialized by the family and society.
- Autonomy /self-regulating need:
It is a quality of one’s own actions. The development of these three areas can be seen in the form of a young child.
Likewise, the need for relatedness, one can be self-regulating as well, as stated in the above point such sort of people are known as introvert in psychological viewpoint, these kind of youths are self-dependent, they hardly allow others to be involved in their affairs, because they will to figure everything out themselves, many of such children are observed when they are into a serious problem or any other illness, they try to hide their problems and avoid to utter their feelings, until his/her elders or parents do not quest them.
- Family background and a child’s own/ personal aims:
As compared to the past era in this term of modernization kids are needy of so many things especially modern toys. However, the life goals of kids that they have had since their childhood ages, means every educated child lay down some specific goals for themselves that they are keenly interested to achieve them, and they have got enough skills and caliber in performing that job as well.
Although many times a child is skillful in a particular sort of sports, his/her parents and family will be demanding him to concentrate merely on the educational platform. Due to such disagreements between the intentions of a child and the parents we have been witnessing for a long period specifically in rural areas, children are forced to do whatever his/her parents want them to, so first a child must be asked about his/her wills to become in the future and must be encouraged and assisted to approach to those particular goals. Moreover, the most important aspect of a child’s life is the discouraging of a child for doing a particular thing. Most of the time besides educational achievements a child may be good at sports, singing or any other activity and he might have got some prizes and achievements, but when his/her family get to know they will start demotivating him/her for not being able to be good at education. But families must motivate their kids for their chosen jobs and for the things in which those kids have got talents and skills. There are some important aspects that must be followed for the motivation of kids.
- Provision of a responsive environment.
- Establishment of close relationship.
- Establishment of joint attention.
1-Provision of a responsive environment:
Each and every child must be treated well and softly, and each question of them should be replied with an open mind and radiant tolerance regardless of how weird or strange the question is because it motivates them for asking questions in order to clear most of their doubts.
Even though we have got a number of young talents around us, but here the question arises, is why do not they utter their words and let the society aware of those hidden talents being stocked inside a child? it is just because they are not paved the path to showcase themselves and their skills.
Nevertheless, a lot of students in schools, colleges, and universities are provided the opportunities to take part in various curricular activities, but still we see some of them cannot push themselves forth to be a part of those activities, because their zeal to do so have already been demolished in his/her early years by the outside dynamics.
2-Establishment of close relationship:
There must be a close relationship with kids because such relationship between kids and parents can be motivational for them to share their problems and their needs if there is a gap between a kid and his/her parents they might not be able to share their problems in order to have them solved.
I believe that children should be trained to have in mind that his/her parents are not only mom and dad but best friends to them so that they cannot hesitate to communicate boldly with them.
In the majority of the remote areas of Afghanistan and even other developing countries kids are not given the chance to share their opinions in the family affairs, and not only that, they are not even allowed to set and listen to what is being discussed by the elders.
3-Establishment of joint attention:
This refers to the close and proper attention of parents with their children, when there is joint attention between kids and parents then those kids can confidently share their ideas with their parents to approach their goals, and they get the clue that they are given proper attention, hence this way they can be encouraged.
One of the major problem that Afghan kids are being suffered from is hesitation. Hesitation to ask, hesitation to showcase their hidden aptitudes, hesitation to take part in the day to day affairs of family and come up with their ideas.
This is thought to be a vital factor for young afghans when they complete their secondary schooling and get enrolled into a College/University, the time when they are assigned any presentation of a seminar to be presented by them, though they get fair marks for that they simply skip it, why? Because they have not been trained to get rid of the serious disease called HESITATION,
However, they know much about the specific topic but unfortunately, due to the lack of boldness, they cannot deliver it, because their confidence level has been equated to zero.
There are few most important aspects that have been recently suggested by one of the esteemed lecturer from Hague University in her lecture, she says a child should own those traits in order to be rescued from those mentioned complications, they are also called as 4 Cs.
1-Communication skills
2-curiosity
3-confidence
4-content
A child’s mind is fragile; your single word can destroy his/her whole mindset.
