All parents want to see their child excel. It’s just a natural part of being a parent. That’s why for many parents, goal setting can help their children excel not only academically but in life in general.
Implementing a goal setting regime for your children might be a struggle. That’s why we have this detailed guide to help you or your clients create actionable goals and achieve them.
Your Guide To Goal Setting For Your Children
What is Goal Setting?
Goal setting is a powerful tool to inspire people (both adults and children) to achieve their ambitions. Goals can be as simple as “do more cooking” and “get healthy” or as complex as “become a professional chef” or “get as strong as Dwayne Johnson”.
Goal setting is the process by which we achieve these goals, laying down the roadmap to success. It can be useful for children to understand the importance of goal setting and achieving them, inspiring them in their life’s ambitions.
Why is it So Important For Children?
Setting up goals for your children can motivate and inspire them to accomplish them, encouraging them to think about what they have to achieve and how they have to do it. It can be inspiring and helpful as the skills and techniques they learn will help them with other more complicated tasks in life.
At the same time, achieving these goals can help them build self-confidence in themselves and their abilities. They know that they will be rewarded for their efforts if they work hard and outside their comfort zone. This will encourage them to pursue more difficult projects or decisions in life if experienced with the support of their parents.
Best Ways to Create Achievable Goals
1. Discuss What They Want to Achieve/What You Feel is Needed
- Just asking your children to achieve goals is difficult if you don’t know what you want them to do or what they want to achieve for themselves. Observe what you feel they need to do more in life, spending more time on education apps and less time on YouTube, or participating in sports. Discuss with them what you think is best for them and how they feel about it. They might respond with goals they would like to achieve themselves. Together, you can make a list.
2. Set Realistic & Positive Goals
- Creating goals that are too out there or difficult where there is no positivity to be drawn from is a huge deterrent for children. For example, if you explain to your children that limited screen time can help their health, eyes and education, you encourage them to reduce their time on phones, tablets and computers. When setting goals, talk about how it will benefit your child, turning them into a positive benefit for them.
3. Break Bigger Goals into Smaller Ones
- Large tasks can seem overwhelming for children, even teenagers. You can make it easy for them by breaking down the major task into smaller steps. This will highlight how children can approach tasks in real life and help manage any stress or issues that arise with projects. Let’s continue using the example of technology and screen time: you can add task lists (of the smaller steps) on a device and have them tick it off as they complete them. Your children will then see how small steps lead to big results!
4. Track Their Progress
- While you don’t want to micromanage your child, keeping an eye on their progress can prove beneficial. You can see what obstacles get in the way and how they approached them. For example, you can use a parenting app (https://www.easyparentapp.com/) to monitor their screen time and what they are doing. From there, you can see how they are progressing in their goals.
5. Celebrate When Goals are Achieved
- This is a very important part of the entire process. When your child has achieved their goal, celebrate it! Doing so will help encourage them to undertake more tasks while motivating them to push themselves when required. Rewards can be anything like “two hours of free YouTube time” or “45 minutes of Nintendo”. Most importantly, they’ll learn that hard work pays off.
Remember that goal setting is a fantastic way to inspire and motivate your child to achieve minor and major tasks in life. You’ll help them gain self-confidence while encouraging them to think outside the box and push themselves. With these tips, your child will be on the path to success in no time!