Motivational Enhancement Theory: Growing Up On A Child

Growing up is hard enough on a child but when you add different elements to their lives, such as new baby in the house, it can really turn their world upside down. The child was the center of his or her parent’s world and now that child has to share it with the new baby, this can be emotionally hard for the older sibling. Many children may take it to heart when they are not getting equal time and therefore start to rebel and state that they “hate” their younger sibling. Motivational Enhancement Theory has different stages of changes that the child may go through when accepting their sibling. When applying this theory it will allow the child to go at his or her own paste and not feel pressured to change. Motivational Enhancement Theory “assumes …show more content…
“According to this formulation, clients move through pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance and relapse” (Giterman, Heller, 2011). The child will only move into the next stages after the complete the one ahead of it. When moving forward the Social Worker would have to encourage and give positive reinforcement when going through the stages. When the Social Worker does this it gives the child a reason to go on to the next stage of change. With every stage in Motivational Enhancement Theory is a process of when they are going to do it. Step one is pre-contemplation, never going to change, two is contemplation, maybe someday they are going to be whiling to change, three is preparation, change is going to be happening soon, fourth is action, change is happing now and fifth is maintenance, the change has transpire now you have to ascertain you do what it takes to keep it that …show more content…
A social worker may give them minimal task to try to see if they can accomplish them or if they are willing to try. As a social worker you also look for different feedback from your client. Getting the child to understand that the new baby is not going to go anywhere although he or she may claim that they hate the new baby can be hard. Social workers can try to establish goals for the child such as playing with the new baby or having one on one time with a parent so the realize just because there is a new baby doesn’t mean they are forgotten. If the child responds well to these goals and is willing to accomplish them this mean a social worker is moving in a positive way. Social workers want the clients to move forward but realize there can be set backs that causes the child to go backwards. If the social workers reassures the child that they are going to move at their paste and they are not going to be forced to move too quickly than the social worker is doing their