Dear Dr. Wes & Kyra: What would you recommend for parents on how to motivate their kids to do more than sit around?

Wes: Motivating kids seems harder and harder these days, as the sedentary lifestyle creeps in from every corner of our existence, beckoning our kids to do less and less.

Dr. Wes Crenshaw and Kyra Haas

First, carefully define what it means to have an active teen life. That won’t look the same for every family. For every kid who is as you describe, sitting around doing nothing, there’s one who is being driven to the point of madness by scheduling too many extracurriculars, AP classes, jobs or other calendar events. Constantly elusive as it may be, the secret in life is to find balance. That’s as true for teens as it is for adults. It also matters whether you’re talking about motivating kids to say, go out for sports they don’t want to go out for (very difficult), clean rooms that they aren’t inclined to clean (fairly difficult) or do laundry they aren’t interested in folding (pretty easy).

As we’ve discussed before, teens who over-do lean to the anxious side, while those who under-do lean to the inattentive side. Assuming you’re correctly “diagnosing” your kids, they sound like inattentive under-doers. If so, you have a couple of options. I suggest doing both, but I’ll warn you up front, that this will require YOU to do more than sit around. They require follow-through, and that’s where most parents struggle.

Next, reorganize the world so that leisure time is regulated by you. This used to be standard parenting practice, but it’s failed in recent years. That means YOU can turn on and off the TV, Internet, game consoles, etc. Only when assigned tasks are completed do the devices come on.

Finally, tie desired behaviors to cash benefits or units of time online or in game play. I understand paying kids is upsetting to some parents who see it as a “bribe,” but when was the last time you went to work without being “bribed?” Same here. In my home and the homes of many client families, we’ve set things up so that money isn’t handed out freely. It’s paid in exchange for desired behavior. And guess what? Kids perform their tasks.

Kyra: Often I open Twitter and scroll past tweet after tweet about procrastinating major English papers or spending more time staring at closed textbooks than open ones. Tempted as I am to smh (Twitterspeak for “shake my head”), the irony of my situation in that moment is not lost on me. I am what I read.

Social media, Xbox, texts and other entertainment constantly beg for attention with their overwhelming and exciting variety of beeps and alerts. And, with products like the new Apple Watch, one can easily strap hours of procrastination to his arm.

So, if as a parent, you want your kid to do her homework

or feed the cat or take out the trash, take away her phone or Nintendo DS until the task is complete. Your child will perceive this as the nuclear option, but I’ve found that the further away I am from my phone, the quicker I complete my physics homework. The same holds true for cleaning my room, reading a book or doing laundry.

Wes’s reward strategy is effective when the task is necessary for the child or family’s wellbeing. If a kid doesn’t take out the trash, the house will reek. If your teen doesn’t do his history homework, he’ll fail the class.

However, beyond essentials, realize you can’t make your child care about the activities you care about. There’s a difference between kids appeasing their parent’s anxiety and actually feeling internally motivated to do something, so think carefully about what you’re really trying to accomplish with any given request or requirement.

If all your child’s motivation stems from the desire to get you to quit nagging, then the second you look away, she probably won’t maintain good study habits or cleanliness. Counteract apathy by keeping yourself motivated. You’ll find that it’s much easier to get them to do as you do, not just as you say.

Wes Crenshaw, Ph.D., ABPP, is author of “I Always Want to Be Where I’m Not: Successful Living with ADD & ADHD.” Learn about his writing and practice at dr-wes.com. Kyra Haas is a Free State High School senior who blogs at justfreakinghaasome.wordpress.com. Send your confidential 200-word question to ask@dr-wes.com. Double Take opinions and advice are not a substitute for psychological services.