Goal Setting for Kids
Goal setting is essential for building a successful life. However, teaching kids how to set and achieve goals is not part of most school curriculums, nor is it taught in most homes. Many parents never learned the techniques of goal setting, and are still struggling with their own. You don't need to know it all. While you develop your own goal-setting skills, you can also be helping and encouraging your children to develop theirs. Goal setting is a life-long skill. It helps your child to focus their unique gifts and talents, it helps to cultivate and strengthening your child's self-worth, and equips them to lead a life full of meaning purpose, and direction, regardless of the professional or personal paths they choose. Things to consider when setting goals with your kids CAREER - school grades, skill development, future plan (ambition); PERSONAL- character development, and personal growth (self-image, sense of responsibility, ability, sefl-esteem), appearance; HEALTH - exercise, diet, over-all well-being, balance; COMMUNITY - commitment to serving others (volunteer work); FINANCIAL - understanding the value of money, earning, saving; FRIENDS - expanding their circle of friends, choosing friends wisely; HOUSEHOLD - chores, contribution to building home life; RECREATION - hobbies, relaxation, fun activities (movies, parties, etc.) Things to remember Expect resistance; Be firm; Look for performance, not perfection; Kids need to see the end before they begin (incentive - what will happen if...); Kids need rewards; Kids need praise. Results As kids learn how to set goals and experience the difference goal setting makes in their personal destinies, it will encourage them to take action. They will begin to create lives for themselves that they want and "Dare to live their Dreams!" As your kids become more aware of greater possibilities in their lives, and tap into their respective talents they will develop a stronger sense of self and of their contribution to society. Success - the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. Failure - Lack of success. When we make mistakes and truly learn from each respective lesson these corrections are directly correlated to our eventual and inevitable success. About The Author Cecile Peterkin is a trained Career/Life Coach and speaker whose work centers primarily on middle managers and their various challenges. She also works with individuals who are ready to move forward, take action, achieve goals and experience overall life improvement, both in personal and in career. Cosmic Coaching Centre www.cosmiccoachingcentre.com 416-486-5000 cecile@cosmiccoachingcentre.com
Related News
DHS to drop ban on foster parenting by unwed couples - Arkansas News
Your parenting happy place - San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle |
Your parenting happy placeSan Francisco Chronicle, USA -Oct 9, 2008When the bad times come, one thing I do to keep from getting out-of-control upset is remember one of my parenting happy places. I have maybe five or six of ... |
The Parenting Vote - New York Times
New York Times |
The Parenting VoteNew York Times, United States -18 hours agoBy Lisa Belkin Ask people with children what most shapes their worldview, and being a parent would likely be high on the list. ... |
Give mom some parenting books - BlueRidgeNow.com
Parenting video series begins this Sunday - Charles City Press
Parenting video series begins this SundayCharles City Press, United States -20 hours agoA great parenting resource is being offered to interested families in Charles City. The first five segments of the video series, “Shepherding a Child’s ... |
Toy Tips and Parenting Hints Magazine and Saige Nicole’s Baby Boutique - PRarticle.com (press release)
Parenting imperfect: Sad moments help us appreciate joys - Oneonta Daily Star
Listen to your teens - Edmonton Sun
Listen to your teensEdmonton Sun, Canada -4 hours agoAs teens struggle to separate, parents need to adjust and fine-tune parenting style and attitudes to meet their teens' changing needs. ... |
Who claims the family policy agenda? - San Francisco Chronicle
Who claims the family policy agenda?San Francisco Chronicle, USA -Oct 9, 2008High rates of poverty, divorce, single parenthood and social isolation exaggerate the typical strains of parenting. As a result, the United States has one ... |
New car technology to aid parenting skills - Great Dad
|
|
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Jammin with Your Kids: The Wonderful World of Music
Does music need to be "dumbed-down" for kids? The answer became quite clear to me and my husband as we observed how our own child responded to complex melodies and varied musical styles in the first months of her life.
Top Three Ways To Communicate With Your Child
Although many parents become frustrated as they try to maintain an open line of communication between themselves and their children, regardless of age, there are three quite simple ways to attempt to achieve this goal effectively.
Should Your Child Watch TV News? Surprising Opinions of Top Anchors
KIDS AND THE NEWS
Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) for Teen Drivers
Drivers 16 years of age have little driving experience, putting them at high risk for traffic accidents. A series of five research papers published in a September 2002 supplement of Injury Prevention addresses reducing this risk. The papers introduce and make a case for graduated driver licensing (GDL), the system of laws and practices that gradually introduce young drivers into the driving population.
Book Review: How to Get Your Child to Love Reading
How to Get Your Child to Love Reading was conceived when author Esm Raji Codell was staring at a shriveled potato that was sprouting eyes. She wondered, " . . . if I had a potato, nothing but a potato, how could I teach a classroom full of children? Well, I could cut a potato in half. (I can use the paring knife from my own kitchen, right?) We could review fractions. With one half, I could cut a design and do potato prints. We could plant the eyes from the other half of the potato (it can have eyes, right?) and grow more potatoes, charting their growth." The ideas cascade: writing a story about a potato, making a book of potato recipes or potato poems, making potato stamps of all the letters, teaching reading, getting books from the library about potatoes, talking about the Irish potato famine, writing letters to executives about potato chips or Mr. Potato Head.
How to Parent Your Teen Effectively
Maintain Communication
Is Your Child Learning Nothing?
You send your child to school and the teachers teach them. If that is what you think, you could be way wrong !
While most teachers are good at presenting information to a class, learning happens ONLY if kids actually want to learn. Teachers may have little time for individual work, and you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
And in many schoolrooms today a majority of the class see learning as not cool, with kids trying hard to not learn !
You may think that the school will tell you if your child is not learning, but you will probably be way wrong there.
School funding generally depends on the school saying how good they are at teaching children, so often they will say that all kids are doing fine even when many are learning nothing.
You may think that school inspectors will ensure that kids are learning well, but NO their job is only to ensure that teachers are teaching well.
So is your child learning nothing ? Well many parents today find out by setting their children their own school tests - as by using Math Sheets that come with the answers. It can be made an easy fun 5-minute daily game "let's play our 'my school test' game".
Not only will you then know that your child is learning, but you should find that you showing a little regular interest in their learning will increase their learning motivation strongly.
You can stick to maths sheets only, or can vary your mini-school-test to science or other subjects using questions from their schoolbooks. Just keep it brief so it does not become a chore for them.
If you show a little regular interest in your child's learning then they will want to learn, and will not follow anti-learning classmates.
Then when the school says that your child is doing fine, it will happen to actually be the truth!
Don?t Make Fast and Furious Food Changes
OK, moms and dads out there, we hear you when you say, my children won't eat healthy foods. If we even say the word, they tune out and already decide they don't like it. Well, my first response to this is "who is running the house, you or the kids". If you say the kids, you have more problems than I can help you with. Put your foot down, you and your husband, spouse, significant other, (fill in the blank) are the ones making the living and doing the providing. I fully realize that children don't like the concept of healthy foods. However, most children don't realize that many of the foods they do like are healthy for them. Most kids I know love peanut butter, well that is a good food for them. So try some peanut butter on that apple or celery they refuse to eat. Or try some low fat or fat free cheese sauce on the cauliflower or broccoli they turn their nose up at.
If your child is being bullied - 20 top tips for parents
Keith is now in the fourth grade and he dislikes school. For a fourthgrader, this does not sound right. The reason Keith dislikes school thoughdoes not have anything to do with academics. Keith is being bullied beforeschool, at school, and on the school bus. Who can blame him for not wantingto go into that environment?The basic definition of bullying is when someone keeps doing or sayingthings to have power over another person. Bullying involves crossing intoone's space without permission.Isn't bullying just something that happens to all children and we're justmaking a fuss over this? The children will get over it, right? Shouldn't wetell Keith to grow up and handle it? Wrong. Bullying happens to far too many
children and adults shouldn't be ignoring it.WHAT CAN A PARENT DO?If Keith is being bullied and he is not reporting it to his parents thenthere are some very important questions to address. Why wouldn't he tell his parents? What message have Keith's parents sent to him about bullies? Does Keith's parents have a history of dismissing what he says? Possibly Keith's parents have had a habit of getting too involved insolving his problems.Tips for parents: Encourage your child to report any bullying incidents to you. Validate your child's feelings. It is normal for your child to feelhurt, sad, and angry. Ask your child how he/she has tried to stop the bullying. Askingquestions is a wonderful way to have your child do the thinking. Ask how is he/she going to solve this. We want the child to do thethinking before we jump in. See how many options he can come up with. Coach your child in alternatives. Ideally the best solution is having your
child solve this without anyone interfering. Most of the time unfortunately,
this isn't possible. Share these strategies: avoidance is often an excellentstrategy, playing in a different place, play a different game, stay near asupervisor, look for new friends, join social activities outside of school. Talk with your child's teacher. Make sure they are aware of what isgoing on. Encourage your child to seek help from other school personnel. Volunteer to help supervise activities at school. Do not ignore your child's reports. Ignoring them sends the wrongmessage. Do not confront the bully or the bullies' family. Teach your child how to defend him or herself. Teach self-respect. Give numerous positive comments to your child. Avoid labeling or name-calling. Let your child know it is okay to express their anger. There arepositive and negative ways to express anger, we want to teach and model thepositive ways. Let your children stand up to you now and then. It makes it morelikely they will stand up to a bully. Stress the importance of body language. Teach your child to use 'I' statements. Teach positive self-talk. Teach how to use humor, 'out crazy' them. For example, if the bullysays to Keith, "Hey, boy you're ugly." Keith can respond in a coupledifferent ways:"Thanks for sharing""Yes, I know, I always have been""Yes, today's lunch was disgusting" then walk away.There is many other aspects of bullying to look at: Why your child isthe victim, whypeople bully, what you child cando if he/she isbullied, signs your child is beingbullied, what the schools should be doing, handling the school bus issues. Allof these are addressed in The Shameful Epidemic, How to protect your child from bullies and school violence.Visit www.stoppingschoolviolence.com to learn what is possible. There are solutions.
Educational Toys - How Do Parents Choose The Best Toys For Their Child
The choices are mind numbing. Walk into any toy store or the toy section of any department store and there are shelves and tiers of toys labeled 'educational toys'. There are books, games, dolls and the list just goes on and on. It includes everything from an infant's building blocks to Leapfrog interactive games. The sheer variety is overwhelming. How does a parent or a grandparent choose the best educational toys for the children in their lives? Will the child like it? Will it hold up under the abuse of play? Will it accomplish the purposes for which it was purchased? And finally, is it a good value for the money?
THE NEW SCHOOL VISIT: 5 Things to Look For
Today the little red school house is not what it use to be, and along with changes in how our schools are funded, how they are governed, how teachers teach and how children learn, it's no surprise that many large urban school districts and smaller rural ones are undergoing major modifications. Parents are bombarded with advice from every media venue telling them to look at private education, consider a religious environment, and reminding them that "choice" or charter schools are the way to go. The only real way to know what educational institution is best for your child is to become a School Scene Investigator (SSI), because today education is serious business.
Lead with Love:How Mothers Can Use Their Greatest Strength to Manage Around Their Technical Weakness
My wife and I have been working on a video scrapbook for our son now for about a year. The project originally started out as a movie of all of our video clips but it was immediately apparent that this scope was far too great. As time went by and as more and more full DV tapes stacked up, we narrowed the scope to be just the first six months of his life instead.
Avoid Weight Problems In Children
Although, not a well publicized statistic, childhood obesity has more than tripled in the past two decades-15% of American children are obese according to the U.S. Obesity Task Force.
Lets Pretend
Children explore the world around them and learn through pretend play. With so many passive activities like watching TV and playing video games, we sometimes need to encourage our children to pretend play. Here are a few suggestions on how to get those creative juices flowing for both you and your child.
Why Me?
Why Me?
Assume Personal Responsibility? Who, Me?
As thinking, acting human beings we have the ability to choose our response to events, people and circumstances. We do not become responsible when we mature; we mature when we become responsible.
Hurting from the Outside - In: The Rise of Self-harming
Ask any teacher or adolescent counselor what the most
disturbing trend they are seeing in teens today is, and they
are likely to tell you it's the growing number of "cutters".
Let Kids Help
One fantastic way to get your children involved in what they are eating, is to have them help. A great way to start is to let them make up their lunch for the next day. Obviously you will need to set some guidelines. For example, when I turned 9 I was allowed to make up my own lunch. In my girlfriends' houses they were 10 and in some others 11. However, we all felt very important and grown up that we were allowed to make up our own lunch. Again, my mom had certain guidelines. We had to pick a lunch meat, fruit or yogurt and bread to put it on (white, wheat, rye or a roll; today wraps are another alternative). As I got older however, I cut down to a half sandwich as I found I didn't always finish a full sandwich. I continue to eat lunch this way today, a half sandwich and some fruit.
What is Incest?
Incest is sexual activity, ranging from fondling to intercourse, between family members who aren't married to one another. State laws vary regarding the type of sexual activity and also on what constitutes the type of kinship that indicates incest rather than just sexual abuse.
Resilient, Confident Kids - 10 Ways to Promote Resilience in Children
Do your children have a McChildhood? Do they experience the type of childhood that may satisfy them in the short-term as their immediate needs are met, but in the long-term, leaves them ill-equipped to deal with some of the curve balls that are thrown their way?
|
