It’s that time of year when many adults are busy trying to make good on New Year’s resolutions.
Setting goals is a good practice; research shows it increases motivation, achievement and goal attainment. But should your approach in setting goals with kids be the same as it is for you?
When my daughter, Tallie, was in kindergarten, she wanted to do something that many kids her age were learning to do: ride a bike without training wheels. “I’d be able to ride my bike down to the bus stop like the big kids and ride bikes with my friends,” she told my husband and I. “Will you help me do it?” It was her first big goal. And yes, we were committed to helping her achieve it.
[See: 10 Concerns Parents Have About Their Kids’ Health.]
Best Practices in Goal Setting
When working with adults to set goals, success coaches and business consultants often suggest the use of the widely recognized mnemonic acronym SMART. Credited to management consultant and educator Peter Drucker and, more recently, to the consultant and former corporate planner G.T. Doran, SMART goals are specific, targeting a particular area for improvement; measurable, allowing progress to be tracked; achievable, able to be done with a reasonable amount of effort and commitment; realistic — they can be completed with the time, skill, knowledge and resources you have; and time-bound, with a start and end date.
The SMART approach is applicable to anyone, including children. However, for kids, I believe we should add to this goal-setting process to adapt for age-appropriateness. So here’s my modified SMARTER approach, based on the acronym that works so well for adults:
— Short-term: It shouldn’t take a long time to achieve goals. When we set short-term goals with our children, they’re easier to achieve. The younger kids are, the shorter their attention spans. (In fact, research tells us that as a result of their exposure to digital technologies, kids’ attention spans appear to be getting even shorter.) I helped my daughter learn how to ride her bike over a three-day period. A second-grader who wants to beat her highest score on a spelling test may do it over a week. And a fifth-grader who wants to attain his yellow belt in martial arts may do it over a three-month period.
— Meaningful: It’s so easy to try to live vicariously through our children or project our desires for their lives onto them. I get it. But the goal must be meaningful to the child. If it isn’t, it’s your goal, not theirs. When it’s your goal, you will find yourself bribing and fighting them every step of the way. Who wants to do that? Help them to find meaning in their goals so that they are on board with the work it takes to achieve them. If there’s no meaning in the goal, change the goal.
[See: How to Be a Good Listener.]
— Agree on the terms: Because children rely on many people in order for their goals to be put into action, every aspect must be assigned. Who will drive them? Who will purchase the necessary equipment? Who will tutor or teach them the skill? When we neglect this component of the goal-setting process, we set kids up to fail.
— Reason-based: Many children look for extrinsic motivation to achieve a goal. To be frank, adults do this too. But the reason must go beyond the reward, such as a trophy, praise or a high grade. Why is this goal meaningful to your child? What will it help them be, do and feel? When the reward is intrinsic, goal achievement becomes much more than something to cross off the list and put on a shelf.
— Time commitment is adjusted: Be cognizant of how much time is devoted to the goal. Unless a child is dead set on preparing for an elite goal that monopolizes most of their free time, allow goal setting and attainment to be fun and appropriately challenging without taking over your child’s life. Research continually praises the merits of free play and unstructured time.
— Explicit: Because children are such concrete thinkers, it’s important that they be able to visualize their goals. I developed a technique called See it, Sense it, Say it, Believe it, Achieve it, or SSSBA, that I would recommend using with any child who is working on goal setting. I call someone up on stage and ask them to describe their goal in detail and what they would see, sense and say the moment when that goal has been achieved. Kids should be able to see themselves crossing the finish line, receiving their diploma or completing the art project.
— Room for mistakes: Make space for lots of them. Working towards goals can be messy and imperfect. You will be doing your child a great service to talk about the benefits and expectation of failure. Making mistakes while working towards goals can help a child know what not to do, what to do differently and what they really want or don’t want in this area. This may be the most important conversation you have about goal setting with your child.
[See: What to Say and Do If Your Daughter Thinks She’s Fat.]
Remember, goals for kids may be more fluid, finite and fleeting than goals for adults. That’s OK. After achieving her goal of learning to ride her bike, our daughter was just ready to play. And you know what? I’d say that’s a great practice for all of us to adopt — children and adults.
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How to Make SMARTER Goals When Working With Kids originally appeared on usnews.com
