If you know a student who utterly lacks motivation
and interest for school, keep reading. Taken from our
Quickest Kid Fixer-Uppers Books, here are
novel, unexpected ways to turnaround apathetic, bored,
unmotivated, disinterested, at risk, negative students.
Once you’ve used these methods, you may find that
you are finally working with motivated, hopeful,
interested students who recognize the incredible
value of school.
*** If Life Were This Easy: Use this intervention with
students who think your services are a waste of time.
To use this intervention, read or show one sentence
of the following text, one sentence at a time. Allow students to laugh and snicker at each sentence before revealing the next phrase. This intervention
works really well, and is fun. Enjoy!
Here’s your new, high-paying job– and you can never
be fired from it!
Here’s your new, beautiful spouse, who is always
cheerful, never sick, and has tons of money!
Hope you like your new home. It’s your dream house
and it’s paid for, and will never need repairs!
Here’s all the possessions you’ve ever wanted, and,
of course, they are already paid for!
If life were this easy, you wouldn’t need us!
*** Sign This: Use this intervention with
students who think your services are useless. This
device is especially designed for older, harder-
edged kids, and is not appropriate for younger
kids and other youth. Please be thoughtful about
using it as it is very surprising and unusual– but
powerful and effective. Be sure this device is
appropriate to your site and community.
The next time you are having students signing forms,
and completing paperwork tasks, simply include the
text from the document below in the stack of papers,
then put that paper away until another time. The
next time a student tells you for the “hundredth”
time that your school or agency is a waste, have
the child review the following contract they signed.
This rather wordy document essentially says: “I
don’t want to be allowed to do anything I like,”
(or use other similarly surprising content.) When
the child says that they wouldn’t have signed
the document if they’d understood it, you can
respond: “Then maybe we still have something
to offer you here.”
The undersigned agrees to never attempt any
participation, commitment or interest in any
event, sport, past time, etc. that is a favorite
or preferred selection. The undersigned wishes
to never perform any favored activities including
but not limited to use of electronics, telephony,
etc. for the next millennium or longer.
Get much more information on this topic at
http://www.youthchg.com. Author Ruth
Herman Wells MS is the director of Youth Change,
(http://www.youthchg.com). Sign up for her free
Problem-Kid Problem-Solver magazine at the site and
see hundreds more of her innovative methods. Ruth
is the author of dozens of books and provides workshops and training.
For re-print permission for this article, contact the author by
email (dwells@youthchg.com.)