Why are some kids motivated and others not? Until I had kids of my own, I chalked it up to parenting and the aptitude of their teachers. I don’t believe this anymore.
I have two daughters, 7 and 5, who have been brought up the same. They have received, if not identical, very similar opportunities, exposures and values that have been instilled from a very young age - values like don’t give up and always try your best.
Yet it’s as clear as broad daylight that the older one is naturally more motivated. She’s not only more willing to try new things but is also more likely to stay the course, even though life seems to come easier for my younger daughter. She is seemingly more coordinated, makes friends more easily and is naturally more confident. And yet she’s less willing to engage in activities she even enjoys doing!
Once I take her to ballet and swim, she obliges and has fun. But getting her there is never easy. Never mind the tug of war that ensues when I tell her to clean her room. I realize she is only 5 years old. But the point is, two kids who have grown up in the same home have very different motivational levels. Witnessing their personalities persist form birth, I am convinced that motivation, along with other seemingly nurtured traits like confidence, is largely determined by genes. There are studies to show this.
The role of genes behind laziness
A couple of studies suggest that laziness, or the lack of motivation to move physically, may be attributed to genes. One study conducted through selective breeding of 10 generations of mice, revealed that active inbred rates were 10 times more likely to run than their lazier counterparts.
In another study detailed in the 2011 journal Proceedings of the National Academics of Sciences, scientists turned off genes that enable muscles to make energy from sugars in some mice. While normal mice could run for miles, those without the genes in their muscles could only run “to the hall and back.”
At the very least, these studies should open the doors for important discussions and the possible genetic explanation for laziness.
The role of genes behind the motivation to learn
A more compelling study was conducted in 2014 by the University of Ohio, which analyzed 13,000 sets of human twins between the ages of 9 and 16 from six different countries. The findings showed that motivational levels varied more between fraternal twins, who only shared roughly half the same inherited genes, than identical twins, who inherited all of the same genes.
After studying students from Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, and Russia, researchers consistently came to the conclusion that more than 40 to 50 percent of the differences in a child’s level of motivation to learn could be explained by their genetic inheritance, which turned out to be a much larger role in student’s performance in school than other factors like family and teachers.
That’s not to say the role of family and teachers aren’t critical to a child’s motivation. But what the findings do show is that the mechanisms for how to motivate a child are more complex than we once thought.
Knowledge is always power, even in this case. Perhaps even more so. Parents can find liberation in knowing that the full weight of responsibility to motivate a child does not fall completely on their shoulders. And instead of blaming ourselves, teachers or even our own kids for things that may not always be in their control, we can refocus our energy towards a strategy that takes into consideration the very make up of who they are.