SHARON ROBERTS CORNER: Goal Setting and Doing: The Perfect Match

When children create goals it helps give their dreams direction and their efforts purpose. When they learn to set simple, achievable goals, they begin to understand the value of planning, perseverance, and self-belief. They also see the consequence of their efforts - good or bad. Goal setting encourages children to recognize their strengths and weaknesses, take responsibility for their choices, and celebrate their progress. All of this builds confidence and motivation and involves the new buzz word “executive functioning skills.”

Often setting goals followed by a reward system isn’t the hard part.  The actual doing and fulfilling of the requirement is when they run into difficulty. However, it can be accomplished by following a few simple tips.

Start with the child’s interests and strengths and keep goals

• as few,

• as simple and

• as age appropriate as possible.

You will want to introduce simple habits for preschoolers e.g. ‘put away toys every day.’ While single skilled tasks are good for early elementary children, e.g. ‘empty and put away the contents of your back pack’, tweens and teens could handle multi-step goals with some independence e.g. ‘improve your mark in a particular subject by one letter this term’.

Whatever is decided help them to be precise. Instead of making the goal as ‘be better at piano’, suggest ‘practice piano 15 minutes 5 times per week’. That way they are focused on the effort.

Break big goals into tiny steps and celebrate each small win. This can be helpful when saving money for some big ticket item. Try to set a clear time frame and a measurable marker. Involve the child in the planning and preferably let them take the lead, allowing the experience to be a learning experience.

Sharon Roberts: https://dyslexia.ca/about/