It's that time of year again, when we take a look at our lives
over the past year and realize we may need to hide the chocolate a bit more cleverly,
cut up the credit cards, and call friends more often. Oh, and maybe get another
hour of sleep each night.
But parents aren't the only ones who can find ways to do
things differently or better in the new year. Why not get the kids involved,
too? Goal setting is a great way for your young ones to learn about responsibility
and establishing positive new habits.
Kids generally enjoy making New Year's resolutions. Making
a promise to themselves and striving to keep it can be challenging and
rewarding. And there may be some benefits for you, too, if your kids learn how
to keep their promises.
When to
do
New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day
What to
do
The key is to make resolutions that are realistic,
positive, and achievable. You can help your kids by explaining what it takes to
make a successful resolution.
Consider these tips:
- Be realistic.
Kids will, as you might expect, earnestly tell you they can give up TV or
eat everything on their plate at every meal for the entire year. (Yeah,
right!)
- With
younger kids, help them choose a simple resolution that is part of daily
life and within their reach in the near future (how about, say, brushing
their teeth at least once a day?).
- For kids to feel successful, they need to experience success, so it's best to pick resolutions with results that can be seen fairly soon. For example, you could suggest that instead of giving up TV altogether, they cut out one favorite TV program a week. Try replacing it with reading, playing outside, crafts, or another pleasurable activity.
- Don't force resolutions. You can suggest some goals for your kids, but ultimately it’s important that you allow them to choose for themselves. This will encourage them to form their own ideas about how to handle many aspects of their lives.
- Write it down.
Encourage your kids to write down their resolutions, embellish them if
they’d like, and post them as declarations on the refrigerator or in other
prominent places as a constant reminder of their goals. In fact, you can make
a family 2010 resolution chart:
- Remind
your kids every evening before bed to mark off the areas in which they followed
their New Year’s resolutions.
- Make sure your resolutions on are the chart too! Good role modeling can go a long way.
- Take small steps. Your kids might propose giving up candy or packaged snacks, but stopping cold turkey will probably fail. Suggest instead that twice a week they go for a crunchy apple instead of after-school chips.
- Encourage and support. If your kids slip up and sneak in
the TV show they were supposed to skip, tell them setbacks happen; don’t
be discouraged, but try, try again.
Some ideas that work well for elementary age kids:
- Picking stuff up. Kids have short attention spans and often have a difficult time picking up after themselves without being told. This is a good goal for your kids to work toward.
- Helping
others. If your kid’s not an only child, pitch the
idea of helping siblings helping each other with everyday things.
- Sharing. This is an area that is often tough for young kids. Remember to praise your kids when they do share and play nicely.
Talk
about it
Because this is a year-long project, you can check in with
your kids once a month — or oftener — to see what they think about this keeping
resolutions business. Are they feeling good about what they are doing? What
have they learned so far? Would they like to change anything?
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