Helping Children Succeed: Facilitating Children's Intrinsic Motivation in a Pressured World

Pressure and competition are on the rise in academics, sports, and other arenas. In this talk, Dr. Wendy Grolnick will describe research showing how this pressure impacts parents, teachers, coaches, and other individuals who work with children. Pressure and stress can make people more controlling, and this controlling behavior can undermine children’s motivation and self-regulation. Dr. Grolnick will also discuss strategies that we can use to counter the increased stress and describe effective research-based techniques – those that support autonomy, provide structure, and increase a sense of connection – that can fuel children’s intrinsic motivation and help them succeed.

Dr. Wendy Grolnick is professor of psychology in the Frances L. Hiatt School of Psychology at Clark University in Worcester, MA. She has been conducting research on the roles that parents play in children’s motivation and accomplishments for over 25 years. Her work focuses on how parents can encourage children’s achievement while also supporting their experience of autonomy and agency. She is also interested in factors that help or hinder parents’ ability to provide motivation-facilitating parenting to their children. Dr. Grolnick is the author of more than 60 scholarly articles as well as two books: The Psychology of Parental Control: How Well-Meant Parenting Backfires and Pressured Parents, Stressed-Out Kids: Dealing with Competition while Raising a Successful Child. Her work has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the William T. Grant Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation. She is frequently quoted in newspapers and magazines including Parents, Family Circle, and Newsday, and she has appeared on various shows on radio, TV and the Web, including “The Parents’ Journal,” “Body, Mind and Child,” NPR’s The Public Eye, and HuffPost Live.