Tuesday, August 14, 2012

What Motivates Us to Make Change?

Lisa is an adorable 13 year old girl who started the program 9 weeks ago. She continues to stay motivated, writes in her journal every day and reduces her red lights. She struggles a little bit with getting her exercise points every day but is working hard. My co-teacher and I sat down with Lisa and her mom last night after class to go over her progress. She is progressing at a very healthy weight and at 9 weeks she has been able to reduce her BMI by 6%,  which is great. 

We asked her, which we often do, what motivates her to continue to make changes? She looked at her mom and said, “Can I tell them?”. Her mom said of course. She told us that when she is done with the program, she wants to go clothes shopping and get new clothes – and not just any new clothes. She wants a cute sweatsuit that she can wear on the plane to visit family over the summer. Normally this is an expectation that I try to manage and perhaps even discourage but in this case it seemed fine.  She reassured us, without prompting, that this was not the main reason she was in the program but it was what motivates her when she feels discouraged – after all, as Lisa said, clothes are very important in 7th grade…

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