Goal Setting For Kids

New Year's resolutions are goal setting opportunities. While parents go about setting goals willy nilly as part of their new year resolutions, it does not occur to most to include their kids in the venture.

Setting goals is not something kids do all by themselves and they most certainly don't have a clue about New Year's resolutions. If left to themselves they can go well into adulthood before they realize they've been drifting aimlessly. Taking responsibility for one's own life and steering it along a chosen path makes life much more productive, livable and enjoyable to boot. If learned in childhood, setting goals become a normal part of adulthood. 

So, the New Year is as good a time as any for parents to step in and educate their children as to the joys of goal setting and its benefits. Poised as we are at the end of an old year and the beginning of a brand new shiny one, give kids a go at the game of New Year's resolutions.

Goal setting makes sense to kids five years and over. By this age, they have an understanding of the simple do's and don'ts. So, for instance, a kid who still sucks his thumb or chews her nails most certainly knows it is not a good thing to do; but is for some reason unable to stop. New Year's resolutions is a concept with the perfect inbuilt mechanisms of fun, excitement, appreciation, and all round good cheer to encourage your child to make a go at giving up these habits.

Goal setting for kids should be

• Easy to achieve
• Not more than two goals
• Not just about losing a bad habit but also learning a new one
• Learning a new hobby

What Parents Can Do

Parents need to explain the concept of New Year's resolutions and goal setting making sure they advance the aspects of fun and excitement and not induce a feeling in the child of being a guinea pig at an experiment.

Dad and Mum can go along and make a drama of their own goal setting for the New Year where perhaps Dad reads more and Mum gives up coffee. Use simple concepts a child can easily grasp, not complex stuff such as "Mummy's going to count her calories as her New Year's resolution."

The worst thing you can possibly do is give up on your goals very easily and treat this giving up very lightly. That not only diminishes the importance of goal setting but also tells your child it is acceptable to give up without a fight setting him up for what may become a lifelong pattern. If, for some reason, the little one is not able to achieve the goal do not bring it up; just wait a little while longer. There's always next year. For now concentrate on your own new year's goals.