Motivation and inspiration can be tricky things when it comes to how we parents can inspire out children to do the things we think they should. I remember before I became a parent how I assumed that I would be able to mold and make my children into the people I thought they should be. I was definitely one of those people (and only childless people truly believe this) who would say things like “My children are going to…” and “I’ll make sure that my kids…” In reality, we parents do the best we can but our children do not come to us as lumps of lifeless clay waiting for us to mold them into the robots we think they should be. They do have minds and motivation of their own.
As parents, what we CAN do is inspire, motivate, and hope to share our values in such a way that our children want to work hard and do things. We cannot really force or make them. Yes, I know that we can set up expectations and consequences and we can attempt to use discipline but discipline is not always the best motivator for some kids—in fact, there are those for whom it just makes them less likely to go in the direction we think they should.
Accepting that there is going to be a certain amount of free will and personality that comes into play with our child or children can actually help us to be better parents. Knowing that we really cannot MAKE them work hard can free us up to figure out how we can help them get to a place where they are self-motivated and develop the character to make the choice to focus and work hard on their own. We cannot make them or do it for them, but we can, hopefully, inspire them.
See Also: The Things Our Toddlers do to Drive us Crazy