How Parents Can Help with Their Kids’ New Year’s Resolutions
A growing number of households encourage their children to make resolutions for the New Year. It’s a great way to teach kids about goal-setting, positive habit formation, and personal growth. But as with adults, success rates for reaching these goals will be low without early intervention. Research shows that most Canadians abandon their New Year’s resolutions, with about 80% giving up on them by mid-February. To keep the next generation from falling in with the current majority and developing a bad habit of neglecting goals, parents wonder what they can do to help their kids stay on track. The solution begins with understanding why resolutions generally fail. In recognizing each common obstacle, parents can take steps to help their children overcome them and clear the path for success for the year ahead and beyond.
Overview of Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail and How Parents Can Help Their Kids Reach the Right Goals for THEM
I. OVERAMBITIOUS AND UNREALISTIC
Your child should absolutely be encouraged to dream BIG. However, when it comes to setting New Year’s resolutions, ensure that they don’t set those that are clearly overwhelming and too demanding. When a goal is overambitious, frustration and burnout typically ensue. This is especially true for children who often begin with an all-or-nothing mindset. Frustration and burnout will lead to goal abandonment which negatively impacts self-esteem and may discourage a child from setting worthwhile goals in the future out of a fear of failure.
What are examples of unrealistic New Year’s resolutions that your child may set? Your child may pledge to read an entire book every week through the year. While this goal is very realistic during summer break, it can be a major challenge during the school year when their schedule is pressed by homework and organized activities (i.e. participation in school sports and other clubs). You child may also pledge to go outside to get 30-minutes of exercise every day, which does not factor in extreme weather for certain Canadian climates that can easily disrupt the goal.
How You Can Help
Encourage your child to avoid absolutes and extremes such as “every day” when it comes to activities that may easily be compromised by external forces. Discuss these external forces with them so that they understand why you recommend adjusting their desired goal/s. Doing so will help them develop a deeper understanding of how goal setting works.
II. ABSTRACT AND VAGUE
Another threat to success rates of New Year’s resolutions is the lack of a clear path for action or measurement. Without specificity and defined markers of success, a resolution like “read more” or “be healthier” is easily derailed. Vague and subjective goals do not tell your child what to do when they wake up tomorrow morning, or the next day, et cetera. Vague and abstract goals lack the specific actions, timelines, and behaviors needed to drive positive change. They do not allow your child to track improvement, which often leads to a loss of motivation as their initial excitement wanes. The above-mentioned all-or-nothing mindset (common to kids) also becomes a problem, as broad goals can lead to a sense of failure after a single slip-up because the goal is ill-defined with no plan for adjustment and recovery from setbacks.
How You Can Help
It’s time to pull out the construction paper / white board and pencil crayons / sharpies so that you and your child can collaborate to define measurable action. Once your child has communicated a desired goal, help them break it down into clearly defined action items from which they can record and monitor progress. For instance, if their goal is to read a 200-page book each month during the school year, have them record their progress at the end of the each week in predefined increments of 25% completion by Week 1, 50% completion by Week 2, and so forth. If they’ve only read 20-pages of a 200-page book (10%) by the end of Week 1, they will recognize that they are behind the 25% per week marker. At this point, they will need to cutback on some non-essential or less-important activity (i.e. screen-time) in Week 2 to catchup.
III. NOT THEIR GOALS
Some parents project New Year’s goals on to their children. It may be rooted in good intentions, but when goals are derived from external pressures (friends, family, and loved ones) buy-in from the individual is limited, motivation is weak, and excitement is nil, especially when it comes to kids. Remember, your goals probably do not align with your child’s true inner self. Consequently, the goals end up being vague, overwhelming, and unachievable (as per above) and founded in hollow intentions. Your child will be not be excited about getting started, and will not be excited about doing the work required to attain them.
How You Can Help
Begin by sharing the following definition of New Year’s resolutions with your child:
“A New Year’s resolution is a personal promise or intention made at the start of a new calendar year to achieve a goal, improve oneself, and/or change a bad habit. Examples include eating healthier, exercising more, learning a new skill, or giving back to one’s community.”
Once they confirm that they understand the definition (encourage them to ask for clarity) let your child know that they have complete freedom to come up with their own goals. Do not suggest any. If they ask for help, let them know what some of your goals are (ones that you are comfortable sharing with your child) and give them time to create three or four so that there’s room to subtract one or more if needed. From here, you can collaborate with them to ensure adherence to what we suggested above – making goals specific, measurable, and achievable.
IV. NO SUPPORT SYSTEM IN PLACE
A lack of a support system is a significant contributing factor to why New Year’s resolutions fail. Research shows that individuals with social/familial support or an accountability partner (defined below) are significantly more likely to succeed in achieving their goals versus those who go at it alone.
How You Can Help
Be there to lend a helping hand when needed. In some cases your supportive effort will need to be hands-on, and in others your child will just need you to be a sounding board from which words of positive affirmation can be offered.
What about being an accountability partner? For the uninitiated, an accountability partner is a trusted person that an individual teams up with to stay on track with their goals, providing support, motivation, and regular check-ins to ensure that an individual follows through on commitments, acting like a personal coach and cheerleader to help one overcome obstacles and build better habits. This relationship works best when both individuals have similar goals, creating a mutual system where they hold each other accountable for actions and progress. While a parent can be an accountability partner for their child when reaching for New Year’s goals together, we encourage you to look for someone who is more in their “peer group”. A sibling who is also participating in New Year goal setting is a great option, but a your child’s close friend or classmate can make for great accountability partner too!
We hope you find the above helpful in supporting your child’s New Year’s resolutions for the year ahead. Meanwhile, please note that the Plant a Seed & See What Grows Foundation inspires and promotes healthy living and learning for kids across Canada. You can help us help the next generation by pledging your support too! View more on how you can get involved.