Parenting: Three Tips Towards Raising Goal Setters

The best way to raise goal setters is to start setting goals and helping children set goals during their formative years. It’s much easier to impart life lessons and skills when you start early.

Children can learn the benefits of goal setting, but you also have to be willing to allow them to feel the disappointment and sadness that comes with failing to set goals. Once that happens, give the child some tools for doing things differently next time.

Three simple ways to help children learn to become goal setters:

Tip #1 - Allowance. Many parents neglect to give their children allowance because they want to provide everything for their kids. What they forget is that by giving a child their own money, they allow the child to establish some independence. The child has the choice of spending their money, saving it up, or losing the money — literally or figuratively. The child may use their money to buy gifts for others or give charity or to help themselves do something better.

Tip #2 - Mall trips. Take the child shopping and don’t be afraid to say no — use your own money, honey. This gives the child empowerment. They have the choice to buy things that may not get themselves, normally.

Tip #3 -  If a child wants to stay up late to watch a show on a particular night, tell the child that if they take out the trash, make their bed for five days in a row and help their grandmother go to the doctor, then you will allow them to earn the late night. Be flexible and stretch your own boundaries of what you normally allow your children to show them that if they take initiative, set goals, follow through and execute without drama, they will be rewarded.