
It’s a new year Kids BRAIN families! This means hopes of shaking off some of the stress and irritation of 2021 and setting our eyes on a newer, fresher version of life and ourselves. Of course, this often means making changes and trying on new skills, roles, or activities, even for our kids. While we as adults may focus on the ever-pleasant changes to weight, wellnesses, and financial freedom, your child’s goals may differ (or not). The team here at Kids BRAIN wanted to help you offer some guidance to your children if they are setting individual goals for 2022 today (while eating black eyed peas and suffering through cabbage [not slamming cabbage, I personally love it!]).
First off, I am going to make a few suggestions regarding materials/websites in this post. I am receiving no compensation for my suggestions, and I am not linked with these providers, authors, or organizations. They are just places that I have headed in the past for direction on personal goal setting and have found helpful. For your teens (and yourself), I would highly recommend James Clear’s “Atomic Habits.”

Beyond being a well written and interesting read (or listen if you prefer audiobooks), there is also a workbook and other resources on the website that offer nice guidance and structure for establishing and achieving goals.
For the younger kids, goal setting is really important, as it encompasses a number of “big kid” skills, like resilience, growth mindedness, and grit. Unfortunately, most people (like 92%) don’t achieve the goals that they set for themselves. This sets you up for disappointment when you would like to make changes and in children, can lead to feelings of helplessness and a lack of healthy risk-taking needed for growth and exploration. So, important, but also likely to be tricky, so a little guidance can go a long way!
Set a Bigger, Overarching Goal:
This is something your child can be responsible for, but it will be easier if parents help set up the structure. Ask questions like “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?” or “What do you want to be able to accomplish?” Expect big stuff that sounds magical sometimes, as children and even teens don’t always have the skills to moderate their thinking into a realistic place (that’s why having helpful adults to guide is important).
Pin Down the “Why”:
You can help your child build goals that are meaningful by helping them find meaning in their own expectations. Ask questions like, “How would that goal help you or someone else?” or “How would achieving that goal make you or your life better?” This can sometimes help you hear the “actual” goal that they may have so that you can help them shift if needed. For example, if you want to lose weight in 2022, your reason why may be very different from the other gazillion people you know with the SAME goal. You may want to lose weight because you see bikini season waving at you and you planned a summer vacation this year. You may want to lose weight so that you can run a 5k more comfortably. You may want to lose weight because your blood pressure or blood sugar has been creeping up and you want to keep that under control. You may want to lose weight because you went to put on your very favorite jeans, and they were a Christmas cookie (or 5) too small, and a few pounds will get you back into comfy denim land again. You may want to lose weight for an upcoming wedding or other event. You may have a completely different reason. Each of these has a different why (to look better in a swimsuit, to be healthier, to feel better, or to create a specific memory and certain way) and all are just fine. For your kids, knowing why they would like to meet a specific goal can help you talk with them about motivation.
Help Kids Chunk Habits:
The hardest part about setting realistic and completely do-able goals is that they must be defined clearly and then broken into pieces that you can manage and measure. If your goal is to, “Do better in Biology class” you have left yourself very little regarding 1) what that means 2) how you plan to get there, or 3) what action steps will be needed to achieve said goal. After you have heard your child’s goal, you can help them define and give meaning to it. James Clear, after lots of research, as suggested that you develop a specific behavior that can be completed in 2 minutes or less as a starting place. Everyone has two minutes they can spare each day. More on steps below.
Set Up Action Steps and Actual Behaviors:
Ok, this is where you take the definition of the goal and translate it into actual actionable behaviors/steps that your child (or you) can use right out of the starting gate to begin to achieve (in little pieces) this larger goal. This allows kids (and adults) to incrementally mark and more importantly, to SEE, their progress. As an adult, I really like the concept of tracking these small and doable steps (Habit Stacking and Tracking article). I think most teenagers could do this too. For younger kids, helping them “notice” when they are completing these steps may mean journaling, using a check list, or having you point out when you see these behaviors in action. This will likely mean actually setting up check in time to talk with your child about how things are going and to work through issues.
Finally, Brainstorming Obstacles and Work Arounds:
If part of the lack of goal achievement is a lack of direction on how to actually start, the other major piece is the part where you hit an obstacle that stops you in your tracks, slows your progress, or turns you back to the “dark side.” Sitting with your kids and talking about what may get in the way of their progress toward goal completion is essential. This allows you to talk about growth as being likely to include stops, starts, and changes in direction at times. Just like when they were little and “going on a bear hunt (you know you know this book),” you have to be able to guide them through the part where they can’t go over it, can’t go around it, but have to go through it. Seeing the obstacles before you get there and already planning on how to get around, over, or through it is important to goal success. Ask questions like, “If you feel like giving up, what can you do instead?” or “If that doesn’t work, what else could you do?” This may be a great time to build in some skill set development on general resilience and cognitive flexibility. Ideas for books and resources below…
Big Life Journal Growth Mindset Kit– they also have kits on resilience, positivity, and goal setting


Example:
I trialed this part with my own son and came up with a conversation that I completely didn’t expect. I asked my youngest what his 2022 goal was, completely expecting to get back something about fame and glory (to make the spring baseball team as a starter, to make drum line, to get an award, or whatever). Instead, I got “to be nicer to people.” Hmm, mom pivot moment. He is my nicer kid (sorry big brother, but you are teenager mean these days). In order to define this goal, I had him give me examples of his “not nice” things, which resulted in statements that his brother and mean kids at school get on his nerves and gets into his head, and then he says and does things he doesn’t want to. Ok, I can work with that.
We discussed the “why” part, which resulted in his indicating that he wants to be known as someone who is kind and helpful and not someone who lashes out. Deep man, especially for an 11-year-old. We then had some discussion on how he (and others) actually defines kindness when they observe it in other people (he said helping people when they need it, being there when other people need him, handling frustration way better than he does now). We then broke this down into actual behaviors and not just aspirational goals. I asked him to share times that he has directly observed “kind” in his own life. He can up with the time he saw a person stop their car and get a dog that was wandering around in then street and then took it back to its owner, the time he saw a person give a homeless man a bag of food from their car, and the time he saw a kid at school hurt their knee and then their friend held them up while they found a teacher. I then asked him to apply “kind person” behaviors to his frustrating older brother. He came up with ideas like, “don’t ignore him when he asks for help with a project.” For the group of mean kids at school, he come up with a neutral response to unkind statement to replace unkind retorts (like “Thanks for taking the survey!” versus calling names back). When we discussed obstacles, he stated that he has been trying to be kinder for a year, but it hasn’t worked. We backtracked to what ACTUAL behaviors he has been using (pushing back with name calling for the mean kids, refusing to help his brother in hopes he will magically understand that that not receiving support feels bad so that his brother will change his behavior in turn). This led to a discussion about what we CAN control (our feelings, our behaviors, our choices) and what we CAN’T (other people’s feelings, other people’s behavior, other people’s choices). Finally, we came up with a set of strategies that were both kind and unlikely to trigger negative emotions. This included a “stop and think” moment that is part affirmation and part thinking moment to avoid rash statement (“I am a kind person; what would a kind person do here?”). For an action step, he chose helping his brother when he asks for it “because kind people help and maybe I can teach him that by showing him.” For the mean kids at school, we came up with several neutral responses and the “speak and spin” method that I share with parents in parent training. This means saying what you need to say and then spinning around and walking the other way so that you can avoid a back-and-forth exchange. For my son, he came up with a combination of statements that allow him to stick up for his friends but not calling names. Finally, we have set up a routine where he and I discuss the action plan in carpool as he is headed into school, and then debrief in carpool at pick up time each day. It’s a start and most importantly, it is all ideas and steps that he came up with (with a little guidance).