In a previous blog, we learned What Laughing Rats Teach Us About Family. Well, now I found a study in which rats that drive teach us an important lesson about children and family. Yes, you read that right. Rats learned to drive in this study. The researchers constructed little cars made of plastic, complete with levers for acceleration and steering, and taught rats how to steer them to obtain their “Froot Loop” reward. What’s more, the rats seem to enjoy driving! In fact, when researchers offered the rats a quicker way by foot to the “Froot Loop” reward, 2 out of 3 of them continued to take the long way by running to their car before driving to get the treat. They not only enjoyed the act of driving they also seemed to enjoy learning how to drive. The anticipation seemed to create joy, or at least something akin to joy. They even began to exhibit excitement and anticipation for the opportunity to drive to their treat.

The researchers began to capitalize on that seeming excitement and joy for an additional aspect of study. Specifically, they incorporated a “waiting period” before the rats could receive the reward. They found that rats who had to wait for their reward developed “bolder” problem-solving skills” and even began to exhibit signs of a more “optimistic” outlook around obstacles.

Of course, all of this had various impacts on the actual structure of their brains. But more importantly, learning seemed to increase motivation and joy. Waiting increased problem-solving skills and optimism.

What does this have to do with you and your family? Giving our children the opportunity to learn fun skills can increase their motivation. If you have teens, you’ve likely seen this when they begin to drive. They become much more motivated to help with “trips to the store” or “picking up a sibling” if they can drive the car. But that motivation starts before the teen years. It begins in childhood. Simply learning to walk increases motivation to explore new places. With this in mind, educating our children about the purpose of a task and the benefits of that task as well as specifics on how to accomplish the task may increase their motivation to complete it, especially if we can add some fun to the task. Rather than simply telling your children what to do. Teach them about the task and its purpose. You may even be able to teach them a fun way to accomplish the task.