PVP Blogs

How do you encourage children to set goals?

Published on: 18/February/2020

 As teachers and parents, our task is to prepare our kids for adulthood. There are some fundamental life skills which we need to teach them if we want our kids to have a successful and prosperous life. We need to teach our kids to manage personal finances, be healthy, how to work in a team, to help others and most importantly to set goals.
 
Our kids always need better direction and encouragement in their life. Teaching kids to set and work towards their goals has many advantages.
  • Responsibility
  • Time Management
  • Self Confidence
  • Resilience
  • Perseverance
As a parent or teacher, we should always encourage our children to choose goals those are:
 
Realistic: We should tell our kids to set goals those are realistic. Whatever goal the child sets, make your child to follow through and the goal has to have meaning to your kid. 
 
Specific: Ask your kids to think about more specific goals those can actually be measured like “I want to score 90 out of 100 in Maths test.”
 
Break Goals: Teach your child to break goals into more small and manageable steps.
Kids need direction and encouragement in this. Parents should have daily conversations with their kids and check in to see how they are doing. Parents can also form a check list or charts which will help in keeping kids on track. You can start by discussing with them things that they feel they can do well. Ask them to write these ideas or goals on paper or chart. This is the most positive way to start goal setting process. Discuss how they feel about the things they have already achieved in their lives. Parents can also ask the kid to recall how they went about learning those things and what steps they followed to achieve it.
 
Teachers and Parents can help the child develop a strategy to accomplish a more short-term goal. These goals can be related to academics or other fields including sports, dance or playing an instrument. The goal can be about anything the kid already know or about something absolutely new. We can help them set a practice plan for each day for few weeks. And at the end of the time period we can check back in with them. Our task is to draw their attention towards their improvement as much as possible. As a teacher and parent we also need to be supportive towards our child as he begins to work toward setting and reaching their goals. We need to be the biggest cheerleader for them. We also need to applaud their efforts no matter how big or small they are and also let them know you see how hard they are trying.
 
We need to know that its never too late or early to start instilling the importance of setting and achieving goals in your kids. As parents you are the biggest teacher so be prepared to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.