How to motivate a child who doesn't care about punishments
Conventional disciplinary measures like grounding, losing privileges, and taking away toys fail entirely because the child genuinely does not care about the consequences. This leaves parents stuck yelling out of frustration after days of deadlock, completely out of ideas on how to get basic tasks done or encourage them to succeed.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- This comes up 10.7× more often in r/Teachers than across the site as a whole.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
How to motivate a child who doesn't care about punishments
- 1Threatening to ground them from techDid this help you?
- 2Making them stay in their room until it is cleanDid this help you?
- 3Taking their toys away for a monthDid this help you?
- 4YellingDid this help you?
- 5Trying out numerous different hobbies, sports, and classes togetherDid this help you?
- 6Offering rewards and incentivesDid this help you?
- 7Letting them be and hoping they will grow out of it or find their motivation laterDid this help you?
- 8Abandoning the unmotivated student to focus energy on students who want to learnDid this help you?
- 9Submitting referrals for non-compliance and notifying counselors and parentsDid this help you?
- 10Dropping by to give gentle reminders while circulating the roomDid this help you?
- 11Putting in the earned grades and offering pathways out of failure if they choose to engageDid this help you?
- 12Reminding students every day about missing workDid this help you?
- 13Accepting work for full credit until the end of the unitDid this help you?
- 14Emailing home and checking in with counselors and the studentDid this help you?
- 15Sitting by them and offering extra helpDid this help you?
- 16pausing the show to prompt the child to answerDid this help you?
- 17modeling how to answer the television promptsDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“We do work and he just sits there. I try to help one on one and he just sits there. He's new to our school so not a lot of history but I'm at a loss.”source ↗
“Student apathy is a thing. I have several of what I can best describe as "furniture" kids. They're present every day, but they just sit there like furniture.”source ↗
“I still drop by when I circulate to remind them to do work, but they don't ever do it.”source ↗
“I have a few students who are not only failing my class, due to not turning in work, but are failing everything.”source ↗
“all year i taught each of them, they would just not have a spark behind their eyes. I spoke to their parents, their guardians, everyone agrees that they are like.... completely unmotivated and its confounding... whag do you do? abandon them. leave them to fail.”source ↗
“I have a behavior kid in seventh grade. He causes a lot of chaos in class and doesn't follow with me, and doesn't do his homework. There's an exam coming up and I don't think he's going to get a good grade.”source ↗
“My coworker and I have a lot of trouble dealing with him and we want to find the best way to deal with him and encourage him without patronizing him. I want him to do well.”source ↗
“I have 2-3 in every class.”source ↗
“my child has never once even tried to answer Steve’s questions with anything.”source ↗
“My 13 year old doesn’t really want to do anything or take initiative to study or hang out with friends.”source ↗
“He says he is bored at school and doesn’t find anything very interesting.”source ↗
“How do I help him find interests and motivate him? We’ve tried so much already.”source ↗
“My other kid has never ever responded or done any of that stuff with a show.”source ↗
“Two of my kids never did.”source ↗
“i have to struggle for 30 min to go outside a saturday when there is a great weather.”source ↗
“They won't clean their room because "i don't care to sleep in a messy room, it doesn't bother me, and i don't want to clean"”source ↗
“I tried to explain that we don't always do what we wants, then threat them (but guess what... they don't give a damn about it) to ground them from tech, that they will stay in their room until it's clean, to take their toys away for a months... they still don't give a damn f*...”source ↗
“I end up to yelling after 3 damn days to lock the toys for 1 months.... and i feel bad because i don't want to be this person... but i'm all out of ideas tbh...”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 4What to do when your child is bored in kindergarten
- 18What to do when your 7-year-old defies teachers and disrupts class
- 7Why does my kindergartener hate reading and shut down?
- 5How do you survive teaching when students don't care at all?
- 19Why does my child say they hate everything they love?
- 14What to do when your elementary schooler refuses to do homework