SETTING SIMPLE GOALS WITH YOUR KIDS

Our kids are quite capable of setting their own goals and ACHIEVING them! With a little guidance and a simple worksheet, you can begin Setting Simple Goals with Your Kids in the area sensitive to them.

This is YOUR opportunity to partner with your children for success.

Let’s set some simple goals for kids today!!

You can do this at the beginning of new seasons, like a New School Year, Summer Break, and a New Year!

Find great ideas for New Year’s Eve with Kids.

Each new year thousands of people make resolutions and goals to launch them into success. I do it!!!

Personally, I like to start each new year with a PERSONAL FOCUS WORD. And, since seeing the benefits of my own personal goal setting, I realized that there is true value in my kids doing it also.

It can be really easy for me to decide what kind of goals my kids should set for themselves – like: be more organized, read more of my bible each day, shower more (lol!), etc.

Start by praying, momma.

When we provide our kids with some ideas and give them time to contemplate them honestly, their hearts will be directed in the ways that God desires for them to grow and change.

After all, we are ALL a work in progress!

Try using the ideas here along with one of these FREE Printables to help your kids identify some simple goals for the future.

There is one for the NEW YEAR and one generic MY GOALS for kids to use anytime.

Head here for NEW YEAR’S EVE Interview for Kids.

ASK GOAL SETTING QUESTIONS

So where do you start? Simply by asking kids some questions.

Several years ago I decided to let THEM choose some of their own goals with little guidance. The best way to enable kids (and ourselves) is to ask questions that make them think.

You know your kids best and know how they think. To direct them you can ask some simple but thought provoking questions.

Some of the questions we asked them to think about were:

To be more kind – what can I change?
To be a better brother/sister – what can I do?
What would I like to learn more about?
What would I like to spend more time doing?
To know Jesus more – I can……

Within these questions, kids come up with pretty general answers, which is where you come in with follow-up questions. Begin by asking them how they can achieve this goal.

For instance, if they say to be more kind they can “be nicer”. Then you would follow up and ask “What does it look like to be nice“?

They might next say “helping others”. To which you can ask – “How can you help others?”

This will bring different answers that you can slim down and determine what they believe they can outwardly do to be KIND. You can follow this process for each Goal area.

Here are a few good resources for Setting Simple Goals with Your Kids:

Fewer simple goals are best for kids. This way they can actually see success and progress without feeling overwhelmed (I do that to myself TOO often).

So your goal is to help them come up with simple, small, achievable goals that you can encourage them in. When you see them striving in a goal area, then you can cheer them on telling them how you see them trying to grow.

As they achieve success in an area, you can remind them that it was a goal they set and this will completely propel them into setting more goals!

To help you start Setting Simple Goals with Your Kids, I have broken these goal worksheets into 3 Key Goal Areas, plus the opportunity to choose a personal FOCUS word.

Personal Goals
Educational Goals
Spiritual Goals
Focus Word

PERSONAL GOALS

This could contain goals like keeping their bedroom clean, making the baseball team, brushing teeth twice a day, and maybe eating fewer snacks.

These should be measurable goals that kids can SEE their achievements. You can make sticker charts for tasks they want to complete as well.

EDUCATIONAL GOALS

Here kids can choose some goals to improve in areas at school. If you have a strong math student, they might struggle with reading enough. Their goal could be to read more than what is assigned. If you have a reader, maybe they can do some extra fun math games.

Even goals like – learning times tables or reading 3 books a month would be terrific goals that would grow kids in the education area.

Set your own GOALS set with some focus here!

SPIRITUAL GOALS

Depending on how you conduct devotions and prayer time in your family, this is a great spot to help kids develop their own spiritual habits. Prayer, reading a devotional or following a bible would be perfect areas to set a goal.

Another great spiritual goal is to apply a specific verse to help growth in kindness, or having joy, maybe being slow to anger, or showing humility.

FOCUS WORD

After the kids have set some goals, ask them if there is one word that would fit some of them. Like perseverance or patience. You get to lead their little hearts and help them to summarize what they hope for their futures.

One year, one of my kids chose “CALM” as his focus word. This child is perfectly anything but “calm.” However, I thought this word would be helpful for him and throughout the year I would help encourage him with this word when he got frustrated or overstimulated.

This activity gave him a tangible memory to remind him that he can grow calm.

I hope you are inspired to begin setting simple goals with your kids today! This is such a great opportunity for us as moms to encourage our kiddos as we watch them grow in confidence.

Happy Goal Setting!!!