Locus of control 

The term locus of control is an invention of the English psychologist Julian Rotter. People with an internal locus of control have been found to take more responsibility for their behavior and to demonstrate typical “expectancy shifts”; that is, to raise their expectations after experiencing success, and to lower their exertions following failure. An internal locus of control can be found with independent and confident people. In good and bad times they will take responsibility for what happens to them. They either feel the situation or work on it to control the circumstances: your life is feasible.

On the other hand, external locus of control is the ability to believe that your life is partly inborn. Fources outside yourself control your fortunes. Children with an external locus of control believe that they do not own life themselves. You often hear these statements:

• Why is this happening to me again?
• How is it possible that it always rains when I want to leave?
• Why does the other person not listen to me?
• Can I never do something right?

Or at school:

• Bad results: "That teacher doesn’t like  me".

In this mindset therefore a solution to a problem  should come always from outside, because why would you solve a problem that is not caused by yourself? In adolescents, fostering this behavior might lead to “learned helplessness” in the long term.

Knowledge about the "locus of control" and its effects can help you to get more out of yourself.

In general, people with an internal locus of control can be compared to people with a "growth mindset". They both believe that you can learn a lot of things. They are prepared to learn from mistakes, immerse themselves in a healthy life and look for solutions more quickly than people with an external locus of control.

We will return below on "growth mindset"

Attribution Theory
 

This theory shows how people explain things about success and failure. This occurs roughly in two ways: through an external or internal attribution.
 
With an external attribution people always look for a cause with a "perpetrator" or "force" from outside. An internal attribution looks for the causes of factors within a person, says that someone is directly responsible for an event.

 An example from the classroom. A pupil gets results from a test, quickly takes a look at the work and sees: ah, a low grade! He considers for a moment this disappointing result and thinks of what a bad teacher he has and how stupid the questions were and .... He gives a lot of external attributions. What caused that low grade? Events outside himself.
In another case, the opposite happens: a high grade! "Well, what shall I say. If you are good, you are good!. Some students are smart. That's the normal way. Why this beautiful figure? Isn't it me who earned that myself.? He assigns the cause to factors in himself and gives internal attributions.
 
This is, of course, a simple example. If the outside world asks us: "Why"? then we either give an internal attribution or an external attribution. Very obvious, but what does it have to do with learned behaviour?
 
This is important for educators: if children can have control over the attributions they give themselves, then future (!) behaviour can be influenced. And because giftedness is so closely linked to motivation (and the other side of it: underperformance), it is important that we are aware of the influence of behaviour at the start of education.
Some nice examples of how that works in the classroom can be read in this toolkit.
 
From: Course from 1994 about people convince and influence each other from Steve Booth-Butterfield, extraordinary professor at the University of West Virginia (USA).

Way of thinking (Mindset)

 
Dweck's research focuses on the relationship between motivation, personality and development. In her vision individuals can always be classified according to their unconscious points of view about the origin of their abilities. Some believe that success is based on innate abilities; they are said to have a fixed way of thinking or fixed mindset. Others, who believe that their success is based on hard work, learning, training and tenacity, are said to have a growing (or incremental) understanding of intelligence or growth mindset. It is not the case that individuals are always aware of their way of thinking, but it might be concluded from their behaviour. This is particularly apparent in the way they respond to failure. People with a fixed mindset are afraid to fail because they think their basic skills are insufficient, while people with a growth mindset are less worried and therefore have less fear of failure, because they realize that their performance can be improved and that you learn from mistakes.
 
This fact plays a role in all daily life all and is therefore of great influence on a person's motivation and willingness to deal with setbacks. Subtle signals from the environment can therefore play a major role on the mindset.
And it is therefore also crucial in education. For example, if children are praised with sentences like: "Well, you did well. Very clever." or: "You see, you are really good at math!" it is very likely that they develop a fixed way of thinking, while compliments like "Well done, you worked hard for it" or: "You see, practicing a lot helps!" probably promote a growth mindset.
For children it is therefore important to encourage them as much as possible to stand even if they make mistakes, by stimulating them to think in a positive way:  Making mistakes is allowed! Better luck next time!
How early can teachers support this behaviour in education? The sooner the better!
 
Dweck makes clear in this TED talk how important the role of the teacher is.

How

Five reasons why a child with a developmental advantage is sometimes not motivated and five ways to deal with it.
 

1. Perfectionism

 
Many gifted children are paralyzed, as it were, by fear of failure. They prefer a task rather than taking the risk of doing it wrong. Even very young children are already learning this. And it leads to frustrating conflicts. A child is then convinced that it does not work.
 
What to do? Continue learning!

Here, the "growth mindset" theory helps tremendously. After all, this embraces the idea that mistakes bring you further and that struggle and challenge is the path to success. So help a child to develop perseverance, tell about mistakes that worked out fine. Tell stories about historical figures that went on despite the stupid things they did. Or talk about favorite heroes from films that were successful because of their missteps. If you can make a child see the power of failure (making mistakes), it will be able to free itself from perfection in the long run of the "chains".

 
2. Temperament
 

Hyppocrates was already talking about the four temperaments, four personality traits that influence one's passions and behaviors: sanguine (happy-tidy), choleric (stubborn and independent), melancholic (sensitive and analytical) and phlegmatic (compliant, avoiding conflict). In most people, multiple temperaments and often one do not play well.
It goes without saying that some temperaments conflict with motivation and the completion of tasks. Children with a sanguine temperament often do not feel like tasks they do not like, cholerists insist that they are told exactly what they are doing first, and phlegmatists sometimes remain trapped in the lethargy of what they always do.
 
What to do? Ownership!

Children invest more in tasks they choose themselves. So find out which activities inspire a child. Of course, that has a lot to do with the intelligences or interests that a child has (see multiple intelligences of Gardner).
But of course there is also a downside: the big "ghost image" of real life. The children also need to borrow with tasks that they find less inspiring. But if you let children do tasks that they like first, they will probably learn to appreciate "effort" for tasks. When they get older, they probably understand that even less fun can make them happy.

 
3. Too focused

 
Some children are so absorbed in play, in a book, in games on the tablet, in drawings, and so on that they forget the world around them.
The "ordinary" things do not fascinate (anymore). To clean up? Ho, but. That task that still has to be finished? Soon.
 
What to do? Short, clear and preferably visual guidelines.
 
A "smart" brain is working at full speed with the information it receives. It works like "Pokon". But that means that laundry lists with tasks and assignments work badly for these children with this brain. To avoid overload and avoidance behavior it is best to give these children specific and clear guidelines, one by one and preferably in visual form.

 
4. Asynchronous development.

 
We have already written about this in the building block for very young children.
Because children with a developmental advantage often operate from (deep) understanding and often form precocious personalities, they sometimes seem a lot older than they are. We have written about the different "ages" in one person. This means that some apsects of their development are much further and others are very far behind. Children who read "Lord of the Rings" but can not yet tie their laces. Sometimes the easiest tasks seem unachievable for these children.
 
How to deal with this? Use in the group with the child practice!
 
Pedagogical staff and group 1 teachers, according to the pedagogue Harry Wong, would do well to practice using the child in the group or class in the first days of the group. That really helps children to learn new behavior and gives it confidence. Take apart the steps that come with a task and take the time to show a child how to do it. Even something as simple as packing a backpack is worth practicing, especially if children fall behind with executive or organizational skills.
 
 
5. Double special.

 
There are quite a few children with a developmental advantage that we call "double special": cognitive lead alongside a developmental disorder or learning disability, such as a disorder in the autism spectrum, AD (H) D, or dyslexia. Not only do these "qualities" affect the learning ability of children, but they also have an impact on the executive functions.
 
What to do? Develop strategies and mechanisms to deal with them (coping).
 
These coping mechanisms are of course different for every child with such a "quality". It must be coordinated with experts and especially parents (the triangle teacher - child - parent (s)) which works in which situation. Structure, space for physical effort, attention to good communication. What is important, however, is that a pedagogical employee or teacher is aware that children have this double peculiarity and that it is not always clear what "causes" something: the cognitive advantage or the attention or developmental disorder.
 
Partly based on:
https://www.notsoformulaic.com/gifted-kids-arent-motivated-cope/