How To Set Goals With Your Kids

It is a sad reality that most parents do not see how important setting goals is. This might be because of how society sees the act of goal setting – it is something that only adults do.

We were all kids once before, so we know that kids would rather spend a whole afternoon playing or watching TV instead of reading or doing assignments. Add that natural thing to parents who do not teach their kids the value of setting goals, and what you have are kids who do not know how to set their own goals all their life.

It is the responsibilities of the parents to guide their kids into setting goals and showing them how important it is to achieve some. Schoolteachers can only do so much to that effect, since their primary job is to assess grades and exams. This is where parents come in – parents should not only teach their kids to be book smart, they should also teach them how to become well rounded adults in the future.

In helping our kids set their goals, one thing that we should all be careful of is suggesting deadlines and setting time limits. For us, two weeks might be a short time but for our preschoolers, it could be forever. You should be sensitive to the age of our kids when you help them create a time frame.

It will also be best if you let your kids write their goals down on paper. On top of that, you also have to help them know why such goals are important and what happens if the goal is achieved.

But the most important thing that you should remember in teaching your kids how to set goals is that, you should give your children the freedom of setting the goals all by themselves. You can make suggestions, but the idea of the goal should come from them as much as possible.

When we make the decision of which goals to have, we are actually teaching our kids setting short term goals. But that is not what we want, what we want them to learn is to set long term goals for themselves. If you feel that the goal is too big for him to accomplish, you can suggest breaking the goals into mini-goals so that tracking your child’s progress will be more visible.

We have to work with our kids in reaching their goals, but we should not be the one to do it for them. We can choose to get involved, but not so much to the point that they will feel dependent. We can get involved just enough for them to see our interest and our support, but we should not take over and achieve their goals for them.

By: Katherine Thompson

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