The Learning Cooperatives specialize in helping teens discover what intrinsically motivates them and what their natural talents are. The priority is building strengths rather than repairing weaknesses. 

However, we’re realistic and know that external motivation can be a practical and necessary part of life. Even in the pursuit of our passions, the reality is that we all are met with things we don’t like to do. Our interest can dip even for the things we genuinely love, requiring us to push through the valleys if we are to finish anything at all. Easier said than done. We know what needs to be done for good things to happen, yet we don’t do it. A little stumbling block called human nature gets in the way. And we struggle with it, in big ways or small, every day. 

The questions of external motivation—Is it needed? Is it helpful? When to do it? How to do it?—have occupied space in my mind for forever. It wasn’t until I met a little, somewhat crotchety, old girl named Devil Dog that I finally got some clarity on the subject. Devil Dog is not a dog. She is no devil either. She’s an elderly cat I sat for who came from a litter with a “Twinkie” and other various Hostess pastries. The name stuck. Though Devil Dog is not human, her propensity for not-wanting-to-do-that-which-needs-to be-done is uncannily similar to ours.

I suppose the older we get, the more that “nature” can get dug in deep. That’s certainly true of dear ole Devil Dog. Her life is pretty carefree except for one daily challenge: taking her blood pressure medication. The instructions were clear. Pick up the quarter pill (with tweezers so as to not transfer the scent of the pill onto my hands), wrap the pill in sticky bacon-flavored paste, roll the sticky bacon ball in ground-up treats so it doesn’t stick to floor, then serve said coated ball to the Devil Dog herself. Simple. Foolproof. Yeah, and the Titanic was unsinkable.

She stared. She sniffed. She licked…licked it clean. She did not eat. She stared again. And just so you get the full picture, Devil Dog is an old cat, her eyelids droop a bit, always looking half closed, so when I say, stare, I mean, glare. She also hisses, for funsies. So I tried again. Maybe I accidently touched the pill. And again. Maybe I used too little of the bacon paste. And again. I’ll mix it in with some of her favorite treats, so she doesn’t know the difference. She does. I tried half a dozen times before I felt I had to administer it the not-so-fun way. This involves holding down a hissing cat with my calves, while using one hand to pry open her mouth and another to push the medicine down her throat. Did that a few times before success. It was traumatic, for both of us. I gave her a bunch of treats afterwards.

Later that day, she threw up on the carpet downstairs. And upstairs, under the bed, on the white carpet. I needed a new strategy, but was at a loss. I don’t blame the old girl. It probably tastes awful, and what is there for her to gain? She doesn’t understand the long-term benefits of her medication. In her mind, if it tastes bad, it probably is bad. It could be poison for all she knows. What could I possibly do to override that ancient instinctual brain? 

The way I figured it, I had to tap into that old brain and have it work with me, not against me—at least to get over the initial challenge of getting it in her mouth. After that, hopefully the energy needed to extract the pill from its meat-paste vehicle would be more effort than it’s worth. Personally, meat paste would be enough to turn me off in the first place. Come to think of it, she doesn’t love it either. She likes it. She’ll eat the paste on its own, but she doesn’t love it like she loves those treats. She eats her treats well past the point of hunger and licks every itsy bit of those ground-up treats off the paste. That’s when it hit me. I’ve got to find a way to deliver more of that treat flavor with her pill.

So I got to work. I ground the pill with a spoon. This allowed me to use less of the paste because I was able to take a smidgen of it and dab up the powder. I rolled that up then washed my hands, twice, for insurance purposes. Then came the secret weapon. I fished through the treat container for two of the largest treats I could find and smashed the rolled paste between them. Finally I rolled it like an ice cream sandwich in more of the ground treats. I placed it before her.  She stared. She sniffed. She licked all the ground treats off the rim of the “sandwich.” Oh brother. Then she licked the treats themselves. She kept licking and licking with her sandpaper tongue, but they wouldn’t lift from the paste. Finally, she succumbed to putting it in her mouth and chewing. You’ve been had Devil Dog!! …She hissed at me. I’ll take it.

Not only did she take her pill every day from that point, but she even started coming downstairs to sit by the bathroom and wait for it, still hissing as I passed by of course.

What I learned from this experience is that teenagers are a lot like hissy old cats. Nah, just kidding (kind of). Yes, unlike cats, we can reason with ourselves to do things we don’t want to do (teens too!). But when it comes to things that we simply detest or fear, if it’s truly for our betterment, perhaps the best thing is just to wrap it in a treat sandwich until we don’t mind the taste anymore. For example, we hear a lot about school anxiety, but teens who are able to spend a good part of the day building friendships and learning things that inspire them, will still be motivated to get up in the morning and leave the house even though they know they agreed to meet that writing tutor at noon.

We can motivate ourselves extrinsically to do unwanted tasks by girdling them with tasks that are intrinsically motivating. Rather than imagining ourselves stepping out of a comfort zone that is encircled by scary icky stuff, we can imagine instead, simply reaching out, grabbing a small handful of the stuff and burying it in our happy place. Treat sandwich.  Eventually the comfort zone grows, not through expansion, but through infiltration.  One by one, each unwanted task becomes tolerable, and maybe even enjoyable, in and of itself. I have seen teens at Princeton Learning Cooperative shift from dreading a subject, such as writing or math, to feeling competent and happy while doing it. Though, I can’t promise there won’t be hissy fits.