Goal Setting for Kids: 6 Steps to Success

Goal setting for kids is a great way to help your child set themselves up for success in the New Year. When you write down your goals, you increase your chances of attaining them, according to a study done at Dominican University.

Showing your child how to set goals is also a great way to help them build confidence, become self-motivated, learn to reflect, and become more independent. All of these skills will help your child throughout life.

1. Decide on the goal.
   

   The goal needs to be something your child wants to accomplish, not something you want them to accomplish. You can help them with some ideas for their goal by giving suggestions or asking questions, but this is something your child will be working on. It needs to be something they care about for the process to work.

   You can ask if there was something they enjoyed doing this past year? Are they proud of a particular accomplishment? Was there something they especially loved working on?

   You may need to help steer your child toward a realistic goal. Don’t tell them their goal is unrealistic. Just help them narrow it down to a step they can accomplish in the near future. For example, if they want to be in the Olympics, have them find classes for their desired sport and work toward going to their first competition.

2. Write the goal down.

   Once your child has decided on their goal, have them write it down. Make sure they are specific in what their goal is. What do they want to accomplish? What will they be doing to accomplish it? When will they be doing this and how?

   For our example, let’s say they decided to start tae kwon do. Their goal could be that they want to test for their first belt in three months and will accomplish this by going to two classes a week and practicing at home two additional nights.

3. Break the goal down into small steps.

   Next is breaking their larger goal down into smaller steps that they can use as a road map to reach their goal. Have your child write these down under their goal. Once everything is written down, they can decorate the paper with drawings, pictures, motivational statements, or anything else they want. Then have them put the paper somewhere they’ll see it often or even hang it up in their room.

   For our example, let’s say they need to receive four stripes before they can test for their next belt. The breakdown of steps can be to learn what they need to know for each stripe. This would be four different steps, one for each stripe. Then they would have another four steps, one for receiving each stripe. They now have eight small steps to work through.

4. Adjust the goal or path if needed.
   

   As your child works through the smaller steps, ask them how things are going. Was there something they could have done differently to make the process easier?

   For our example, maybe they learned what they needed to for their first stripe in class but forgot part of it when they practiced the next day. What can they do when they learn it again to make sure they don’t forget it? Maybe they can write it down or have you video them, so they have something to reference.

5. Celebrate when the goal is reached.

   When your child achieves their goal, celebrate in some way. Your child can decide what this celebration will be when they set the goal or when they reach it. Just make sure something is done to acknowledge their hard work.

6. Reflect and set a new goal.

   Ask your child to think about everything they did to reach their goal.

   Was there something that didn’t go as they thought it would? Was there something they could have done differently? Were the small steps they decided on small enough? Could they have been broken down even further? What worked well for your child? How did they stay motivated to work on the small steps?

   When they know what worked and didn’t work for them, have them use these insights as they work through the above steps to set a new goal.

When your child finishes working through the above steps for goal setting for kids, have them lead the family through each step to set a family goal. Your child will gain some valuable leadership skills, and your family will bond as everyone works toward a goal that is important to the whole family. Just make sure to get everyone’s input on step one, as the goal will need to be something everyone in the family wants.

The steps involved in goal setting for kids will teach your child how to look at a larger goal and break it down into actionable steps. It will also teach your child how to reflect and look at their actions to see if there was something that helped them reach their goal or if there was something they could have done better.

Goal setting can also teach your child how to push forward when something unexpected happens or an obstacle appears and how to change their path to reach their goal another way, if needed.