We all have to start somewhere. Teaching your children how to start, and complete, goals will pay off immensely for them in the future. Goal setting isn’t inherently known, it needs to be taught and learned through experience. Help them create a neuro pathway that is realistically optimistic. Show them how to reach their dreams by doing the next right thing towards it. Children are capable of great things!
It’s a season of new beginnings. We started a new year and a new decade. Most of us have big plans we are hoping to accomplish in the next year and over the course of the next ten. I’ve been thinking a lot about setting goals and teaching my children to set goals. It’s an interesting topic to me because we, of course, want our goals to be high and cause us to grow. On the other hand, we have to set realistic goals that actually seem achievable to us. It’s a tough balance finding the right middle ground of what seems high enough as well as attainable. There’s a phrase a recently read about that makes so much sense to me. It’s called realistic optimism. This idea is something I think I’ve always sort of done but didn’t really have a name to call it.
Realistic optimism is about grounding your goals in the here and now while still reaching for the stars. It’s backtracking your large goal into small chunks that you complete over time. You maintain your optimism that things will work out great, but you realize there are steps along the way to make it happen. I think this concept is so important to teach our dyslexic kiddos. Teaching them to keep positive and look on the bright side when things seem to be going so slowly for them. You want them to reach for the stars but not do so blindly, setting them up for failure. The last thing they need is to fail at their own goals. Setting goals that are unachievable within six months is too high of a goal for a child. When they start achieving their own goals, it gives them a sense of confidence. It also gives them an understanding of the effort and perseverance required. You can hitch a ride on a star, but that still means you had to be prepared to lasso the star in the first place.
Part of setting goals for children is teaching them the importance of goal setting in the first place. They need to know the why of what the are trying to achieve. Help them flush out why this goal is important to them and what is the point of achieving it. Their emotional reason may be totally different than the ones you were thinking of. Knowing their reasons helps you support them because you’ll know why it’s significant. When we know the why, we figure out the how. I also think it’s important to have multiple goals, maybe one for different areas of your life. Currently, my son has a goal to achieve his orange belt in karate. My daughter wants to complete her moveable alphabet work at school. They both are working on getting ready for school quickly so they have more free time in the mornings. (Total transparency, I nudged them to create this goal for my own sanity. 😉) The point is there are several areas of life that you can create a goal around, even for children. The great thing about this method, is they are likely to achieve at least one of them because it will be in an area of interest. When you start achieving the goals you set for yourself, you are increasing your self-confidence, perseverance, and patience. These skills will clearly serve them in the future.
Once you have the goal in mind, ask them what they think needs to happen to achieve it. You’ll be astonished at how accurate and detailed they are at coming up with a plan of attack. Teach them to follow that inner wisdom. On the other hand, if the steps aren’t clear to them, or they are coming up with outlandish ideas, start them off with a few steps and see if they can pick up from there. Write down what the steps are and put it in a place they can see it daily. Use pictures as much as possible. It makes it easier for our struggling readers, but also our mind works in pictures. The pictures help create the neuro network to make the goal happen. Remember to put a timeline on the goals otherwise, it’s just a dream. This is where that piece of realistic optimism comes into play. They need to expect the goal to happen, have steps that seem reasonable to achieve, and be willing to put in the effort to complete the steps. You can help them celebrate the little wins along the way as they start marking off their progress.
Viola! You have just set goals with your kiddos and set them on a path of realistic optimism. Hopefully, they will continue to reach for the goals that push them but they also know are within their reach. They can be set up for success by doing the next right thing along the way. For dyslexic children especially, the more ways we can find for them to achieve success often will help counteract the difficulties they are facing in school. They need to believe they are capable and deserving of reaching whatever their hearts desire.
