The Motivation Treadmill: What Brain Development Reveals About Your Struggling Homeschooler

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily represent the views of New Leaf Publishing Group, Master Books, or any of its subsidiaries.

Let me start with the most important thing I can tell you today: You're not alone.

I know you see all those happy first-day-of-homeschool pictures on social media. I know it feels like everyone else has it together while you're dealing with meltdowns, tantrums, and a student who seems completely unmotivated to do their work. But here's what I want you to know from years of experience and from being part of a community of thousands of homeschool moms: just because there are wins doesn't mean there aren't also struggles and frustrations.

We have students of all different ranges and capabilities. They're going to have good days and bad days. We're going to have wins and losses. That's completely normal. The first day or first week of school, developing new patterns — these aren't easy for any of us.

So let's talk honestly about motivation, what's really happening in your child's brain, and some practical ways to navigate this challenge without losing your mind or damaging your child's love of learning.

Here's something critical that I think gets overlooked: Up to age 11, there is so much happening developmentally in a child's brain. And I mean constantly. These kids are learning consequences, they're moving from very concrete thinking into abstract thinking, and sometimes when we're asking them to do applied learning, it's genuinely challenging for their developing brains.

We want our second grader or third grader to have an adult brain, but their brain just isn't there yet. It's building, creating, developing. We have to give room for growth.

Not every child learns the same way. Some students do really well visually. Some do really well by listening. Some need to be hands-on, actually doing something to understand it. I'd encourage you to study terms like child development or learning styles and get a flavor of what the expectations are for students at different ages.

Maybe your child is an auditory learner, and they'd do really well communicating verbally — but we're asking them to write everything down, and that hand-to-pen motor skill is a genuine struggle. Maybe they could tell you the answer beautifully, but writing it out feels impossible. That's not necessarily a discipline issue; that's a developmental reality.

Let me give you what I think is one of the most helpful pictures for understanding motivation and stamina. Imagine we take a bunch of third graders and put them all on treadmills. Now imagine we set every treadmill to extreme difficulty — steep incline, fast speed. What happens? Most of those kids are going to fly right off.

The only way to make this work is to adjust the pitch and speed of each treadmill individually. 

Some kids have natural ability—they can handle a steep pitch and faster speed. They have the necessary coordination and stamina. Other kids? You have to slow the speed way down and lower the pitch until they develop the ability to handle more.

This is exactly what we need to do with homeschool curriculum and learning pace. We have to match the pace of the curriculum and the learning to the pace of the student. We have to adjust the speed and tilt to each student's abilities.

Now, I know sometimes we confuse this with self-control issues: "The student is just shutting down and throwing a tantrum. They need discipline because they can do this." And yes, sometimes that's true. But what they can do and what they're capable of expressing or answering in that moment can differ. There's so much development happening in the brain all the time.

Here's my advice: Be very selective and use wisdom when choosing curriculum, and don't be afraid to pull back or slow down.

If there's a page of math questions and you notice your student is overwhelmed, start with one question. Give auditory feedback. Don't make them answer every single one. If there's too much copy work, celebrate the win of doing some copy work, then pull back. You adjust it. You adapt it. You tailor it.

Think of that treadmill. It doesn't matter what someone says about where "every third grader should be." If your student needs it slower, slow it down for them.

Let's be honest about motivation for a minute. Do you procrastinate on tasks? Do the dishes ever pile up? Do certain household chores get postponed because you really don't want to do them? 

Of course! We all do this.

School is often a task that needs to be done, and if kids aren't enjoying it, resistance is natural. So how do you motivate yourself? 

• Sometimes you give yourself a treat. 

• Sometimes you just buckle down because it has to get done. 

• And honestly? Sometimes you have a bad attitude while doing it.

I'm not advocating for abusive or destructive behavior, but I am saying: We don't always need grins and giggles to accomplish something. We just need to get it done.

Give your kids that same freedom. They can't have a bad attitude that destroys the household or tears everyone down, but I don't necessarily need them bouncing with enthusiasm either.

Here's something really important about how the brain works. Imagine a field of tall grass. The first time you walk through it to create a pathway, you can see where you've been. The next time you come to that field, if you're going to the same place, you're going to take the same path. Eventually, that path becomes a well-worn roadway.

That roadway is a neural pathway. It's bathed in chemicals and processes, and once it's established, it becomes the path of least resistance. Your brain wants to conserve energy (did you know that the harder you think, the more calories you burn?), so it will naturally take the easiest path.

Here's why this matters for motivation and learning: If a student develops anxiety around learning — if that neural pathway connects learning with stress, frustration, and pain — they will carry that forward through all their school years. I can tell you from experience: once a child has anxiety around learning in first grade, you will struggle and fight that all the way through twelfth grade.

In early child development, all these brain connections are being made. The brain is developing really important habits that they'll take forward into their teenage years and adult years. If what gets created is toxic stress or anxiety around the learning process, you're building a negative, demotivating pathway that's very hard to undo.

That's why I think you're better off relaxing a little bit and listening to your child. Sometimes we force people to get loud or angry before we actually hear what they're saying. Don't wait for a meltdown. Ask them: "Explain to me what's happening." Try to understand—are they overwhelmed? Are they having more fun playing? Or is their brain genuinely having to work really hard to make connections?

If you're like me, starting an exercise program is not fun. My body doesn't enjoy it at all, and my brain will do whatever it takes to avoid exercise. It will find pain, distraction, ways to procrastinate, and convince itself that maybe tomorrow we can do it. That's what the brain is good at — not exerting energy without motivation. Your child's brain works the same way.

I need to address something that affects motivation significantly: screen time and easy dopamine hits.

If your students are watching a lot of TV, YouTube/TikTok videos, or playing video games, those activities have different reward circuitry. The brain gets lazy, and a lazy brain doesn't help when it comes time to learn to read or write or do difficult things.

Here's something that should concern all of us: a lot of people in Silicon Valley who developed platforms like Facebook or gaming systems understand the cognitive reward system so well that they won't let their own families on those platforms. If it's dangerous enough that they won't let their own kids use what they created, how much more should we be concerned?

If this happens to us as adults, we have to be extremely sensitive that it's happening to our kids too. Easy rewards and easy hits of dopamine definitely short-circuit the ability to do difficult things.

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has extensively researched this issue in his book The Anxious Generation, documenting how the shift from play-based childhood to phone-based childhood between 2010 and 2015 has contributed to rising anxiety and depression in young people. His work has been pivotal in the many policies and laws that restrict or outright ban smartphones in schools. 

In our home, we tend to have certain days that our kids are allowed screen time, or we limit it to half an hour a day or three days a week. We don't give unlimited access to electronics. This isn't just my opinion or church opinion — this is based on understanding how reward systems affect the developing brain.

Here's something I don't always like hearing, and I know people don't like it when I say it, but: We get what we lead.

If my kids aren't showing self-control, I have to step back and evaluate: Do I show self-control? Do I show self-discipline? Are they modeling my behaviors? Are we setting a good example?

If I spend a lot of time on Facebook, I have more issues with frustration and reacting improperly to my children. If I see that happening with me, it's happening with them with video games too.

Model healthy screen time. It's easy to test self-control outside the classroom too. If I tell my son to set the table for dinner, can he do it? Does he do it? If he's not able to brush his teeth, put on pajamas, and get ready for bed consistently, then we probably need to work on some self-control and character issues that will carry forward into school.

But I do think in early learning, there are so many complexities, and every student is different. That's why we need the wisdom of the Lord and to be praying for that.

Sometimes a student's behavior or ability is greatly affected by life circumstances: a new baby, a new job, a move, loss of a grandparent. All of these things impact our students' mental capacities.

The brain can only handle so much. Even for us as adults, the brain doesn't like stress, doesn't like change, and doesn't necessarily like growth unless there's strong motivation for it.

Be aware of what's happening in your child's life and ease things accordingly.

Let me share something encouraging. One of our daughters struggled and struggled and struggled. She was delayed in reading, delayed in math. It took forever to get math facts memorized. Her elementary years were, honestly, almost the worst outside of a special-needs situation.

And then, around 13 years old, the kid just, boom — took off like a rocket! Totally caught up. Graduated. Phenomenal. Her high school years were absolutely the best.

I say that to encourage you: If your kid is in second or third grade and they're struggling and it feels like a constant battle for motivation, be patient with the process. Think of the treadmill. Make sure it's the right speed and right height for that student. Then you can build up the speed and intensity over time.

In early childhood development, we're not trying to get kids to impress people with facts. They don't need to pass their SATs in first grade. You've got plenty of time for that.

What we're really wanting to do is create healthy habits and create a brain that gets excited about learning — a brain that is motivated to learn and doesn't feel pain around the learning process.

All through my school years, I found pain in learning and ways to escape it. As an adult, as I've gotten more connected to the learning process, I love to learn new things. That's my passion. But it's definitely taken time to let go of the anxiety around learning new things.

Out of thousands of moms in our community, there are a lot whose houses aren't perfectly put together. My goodness, the seasons we've gone through — the house wasn't together, laundry wasn't done, kids were eating cereal for supper. And then there are seasons where it all comes together and starts to flow and you get victory. That's completely normal.

Ask the Lord for wisdom and insight into your student's abilities and skills. Remember that your student is an individual, created as an individual before God, and your job is to train them with patience, grace, and wisdom.

You've got this. And on the days when you don't feel like you do — remember, you're not alone. Even frowny-face days can turn into victories with the right perspective and approach.

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