As parents, we are always looking for ways to help our children grow. In the past we talked about goal setting with Isla a little bit, but this year it became clear that she was ready to become more intentional and dedicated in her own personal growth.

At the start of the year we spent time discussing the purpose and importance of setting goals. We explained that a goal is something you want to learn, do, or achieve, and that we set goals to help keep ourselves focused and progressing. After sharing some examples of goals we then asked Isla what she would like to learn or improve this year. We encouraged her to think about a mix of academic goals, behavioral goals, and goals that would support her interests. To assist her in this process, we asked a variety of guiding questions:

“What is something you have a hard time with in school?”
“You have been working very hard at ice skating. What is one skill you’d like to get even better at?”
“What is something new that you would like to try?”
“Let’s think about how you have been treating other people. Is there anything you think you can improve?”

As Isla shared her ideas we continued to ask clarifying questions to better understand her thinking and determine how/where we could help. For example, Isla explained that she sometimes had a hard time sitting on the carpet at school. I asked her why and she responded that her classroom was very warm. While sitting on the carpet she would get really hot and it made it hard to focus. So, I suggested instead of wearing all winter clothes we send her to school in a t-shirt and warm layers for outdoors, so that she wouldn’t overheat in the classroom. She has reported that this simple change has helped her significantly with her focus on the carpet.

Through our discussions, Isla came up with 6 excellent goals for herself— all by herself! Woo hoo, baby girl! I wrote them down, verbatim, as we talked so that it didn’t slow the momentum of her ideas. While our guiding questions helped Isla examine different areas of her life, we were careful not to try and influence her ideas. When our kids choose their own goals it increases the likelihood they will achieve them because they are genuinely interested and invested.

Isla’s 2020 goals:

1. Learn to swim at the top of the water
2. Do a one foot glide
3. Read and write all kindergarten and 1st grade snap words
4. Sit still on the carpet and stay focused
5. Speak kindly to other people all the time
6. Try out horseback riding

As soon as Isla set her goals the first thing we did was congratulate her and excitedly tell her that we had confidence in her abilities. We wanted her to know, without a doubt, that we were there to support her. She was feeding off our excitement, but suddenly looked worried and asked, “But what if I don’t meet one of my goals by the end of the year?” We then reassured her that if she couldn’t meet all her goals that was TOTALLY OKAY! We explained some goals change, and sometimes you just need more time to work towards certain goals. The most important thing is that we are always making an effort to grow and improve ourselves! Our children need to know that it is okay, and expected, that they fail sometimes. Failure is where much of our learning happens and our perseverance develops!

Knowing we are significantly more likely to achieve our goals when we write them down and keep them in a place where we see them, we started thinking about the perfect place to display Isla’s goals. If you’ve followed along with us a while you likely recognize the tree on her door. It is the foundation for our summer fun leaves, fall thankfulness leaves, and Christmas advent activities. We call it our Connection Tree, as it inspires opportunities for our family to talk, dream, reflect, and connect with one another. We have even more plans for the Connection Tree this year (stay tuned!), and decided we wanted to somehow incorporate Isla’s goals into her tree display. So, since her goals are for the whole year, we decided to make them clouds above the tree, because we have clouds in all seasons.

After Isla decided upon her goals and we knew how we wanted to display them, Isla then drew cloud outlines and set to work writing one goal inside each cloud. I usually encourage all inventive spelling, but Isla genuinely wanted to know how to spell the words she didn’t know, so I helped her sound them out.

I then outlined the clouds with glue and glitter, and outlined the words with black pen, so that they stood out. These are not necessary steps, but they add to the aesthetics of the display— if you’re going to look at something all year, you might as well add a little sparkle, right?!

We hung the goal clouds over Isla’s new Connection Tree on her door, so that we can all see them every single day and keep them in the forefront of our minds.

One important point to remember in goal setting is that they need to be revisited frequently. We’re making an effort to talk with Isla about her goals regularly, helping her plan actionable steps, and providing encouragement.

It has been incredibly exciting seeing Isla take such huge strides towards independence and growth. Helping her set her goals was such a simple (and fun!) process, and we cannot wait to see all that she will achieve this year!

Helping your child set and achieve their goals does not have to be a challenge! We’ve compiled our 10 best tips for you below:

10 Tips for Helping Your Child Set and Achieve Their Goals

• Talk to your child about the purpose and importance of goal setting in clear, simple terms— a goal is something you want to learn, do, or achieve. We set goals to help keep ourselves focused and progressing.
• Share examples of goal setting— both theoretical and real life examples are great!
• Encourage your child to choose a variety of goals that grow them academically, emotionally, physically, socially, and creatively.
• Use guiding questions to help:
  • “What is something you have a hard time with at school/home/in sports?”
  • “You’ve been working very hard at (insert something they’ve been working on). What is one skill you’d like to get even better at?”
  • “What is something new you’d like to try?”
  • “Let’s think about how you have been (insert action). Is there anything you think you can improve?”
• Make sure your child’s goal setting language includes verbs (learn, try, do, etc.) so that it helps them understand the action they will take.
• Set a realistic number of goals— 1-10 for an entire year, depending on difficulty, is a good place to start.
• Display your child’s goals where they can see them each day. Adding illustrations to the goals can be helpful if your child is not yet reading.
• Talk with your child about their goals regularly— Check in to see how they are doing a couple of times a month (or more often if necessary), point out positive steps you have seen them taking, share your own goal setting experiences, ask them questions— all of these conversations help your child focus on their goals!
• Assist your child in making a plan to achieve their goals— Help them break their goals into actionable steps, ask clarifying questions, offer multiple solutions for them to consider.
• Encourage your child— Talk to them, leave them notes, give them a thumbs up or pat on the back— basically any positive acknowledgement of their efforts! Don’t forget to point out that even if they stumble or goof up they are still making progress.
• Celebrate goals or milestones towards a goal WHEN they are reached!

Parents, do you have any additional strategies for helping your children set their goals? If so, please leave a comment!