It’s just about two and a half weeks into January, a short time after many of us adults have set New Year’s goals. How well are we all doing? I just read that only about 8% of people reach their New Year’s goals. Because many people probably don’t set New Year’s goals or any real goals at all, the percentage of people stretching and growing as they achieve goals is probably well below 8% of the population. An especially interesting statistic is that today—January 19—is the day that the majority of people ditch their New Year’s goals. This is less than three weeks after setting those goals.
Usually, if adults aren’t very good at a certain task, I generally assume that kids will be even worse. For example, I don’t know very many adults who have enough self-discipline to eat just one cookie, and we can all agree that kids are almost certainly less able than adults to eat just one cookie. You’d assume the same would be true for goal setting. If adults are not disciplined enough to set and reach goals, kids probably aren’t either.
Even if kids can’t manage goal setting as well as adults, we shouldn’t exclude kids from goal-setting. Over the past few weeks, my wife and I have given our kids a little guidance and help to set goals. Our kids are all well under 10 years old, so my expectations haven’t been especially high, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how ambitious they are and how diligently they’ve strived for their goals, especially their physical goals, which are helping them be more active. And their physical abilities are clearly improving as they reach for these goals, even in a short time.
I suspect that many—if not most or even all—kids have amazingly raw ambition, untainted by skepticism or past failures. I also suspect that this ambition goes largely unused. We should probably do better to help even our young children set and achieve goals.
This post discusses—and requests your input—on how to use goals to specifically help our kids be healthier and more active. In this post, I address two ideas: 1) the power of kids setting their own goals and 2) learning through trial and error on how to set realistic and attainable goals. I discuss these ideas in the context of daily and long-term goal, both of which help motivate kids to put down the electronic device in favor of the sunshine outside.
Help Kids Own Their Goals
When I recreate with my young kids, I sometimes set a goal with them for that day or the specific activity. I am working on refining this skill so that these goals—and more importantly the activities we engage in—are more fun and more successful.
I often inspire my kids to do something they consider very hard: “Let’s get off our rear ends and go outside!” And once we are there: “Let’s catch the ball this many times in a row before stopping,” “Let’s hike to this destination or to this peak,” “Let’s canoe across this entire lake,” “Let’s swim for this many minutes,” “Let’s ski this many runs before escaping from the cold,” “Let’s bike this many miles,” or whatever it may be. I’m finding, however, that although my suggestions are helpful, they are not the best way of helping my kids form goals. They often accept my suggestions blindly, jumping on board without any enduring commitment to help them muscle through difficulty and discomfort.
To really tap into my kid’s ambition, I am learning that I should let them set each goal themselves, free of my suggestions where possible. I need to make sure they own the goal, rather than reluctantly agreeing to my idea of what they should accomplish.
I stumbled across this idea yesterday when sledding with my three young boys—ages eight, seven, and five (up Millcreek Canyon near Salt Lake City, Utah, on a trail called Porter Fork Road). As we trudged up the long mountain trail with our sleds and our faithful dog, my only real desire was that we had as much fun as possible. “How far do you want to go up before we come down?” (Notice that I did not ask them if they wanted to go X distance but rather prompted them to contemplate how far they wanted to go.) I mostly directed this question at my seven-year-old, who is extremely talented at complaining. If he committed to a distance and didn’t have to be pulled along, we’d all have a better experience. I wasn’t excited about fighting him—all his whining and flailing of arms—up a cold, icy hill. I was fine to go up 100 yards and then sled back down.
My seven-year-old thought in silence, battling his desire to turn around right then (which would have been fine with me). His eventual answer surprised me. In between whines and near-sobs, he boldly determined, “I want to go to the top.” I had told him that the road beneath us (covered by snow) began with cabin 1 and ended at cabin 37 or so, and he was determined to see cabin 37, despite the pain required to get there. So, we kept trudging up, and although the whining didn’t stop, each time I asked my son if he wanted to turn back, he responded by calming his whines and reaffirming that he wanted to reach the top. His goal.
The fact that he had set this mighty goal actually worked against me. I was pulling my five-year-old in a sled, and I didn’t especially enjoy this task on top of combating negativity with motivating stories and any encouragement I could come up with. Turning back would have been fine for me. But no, my seven-year-old (and the other two boys as well) wanted to summit the sledding hill.
Then my excuse to turn around came. A she-moose appeared on the trail, walking directly at us, thirty or forty yards away. A little scared (OK, maybe a lot scared), I commanded the boys to huddle around me, no idea what I was going to do when the moose reached us. “Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!” The moose stopped, startled by our one-year-old vizsla, and ran back up the trail. “Well, let’s head back!” But no. They wanted to push forward. I explained that the moose was still on the trial and that we couldn’t pass. (“Great! The whining is over, and the fun sledding begins,” I thought.) But before we could mount our sleds, the moose veered up the mountain side, off the trail. The boys begged me to keep going. They wanted to summit the blasted sledding hill. That blasted goal.
And so we kept trudging up the mountain, me enduring more whining and repeatedly offering the solution of turning around. We finally reached the top, gloried in our victory, and then enjoyed an almost two-mile decent. The goal got us there, and the decent was probably worth enduring the whining. Now I need to work on reaching goals with a smile.
Help Kids Set Realistic and Attainable Goals
Again, my kids (and all kids, I believe) have raw, untainted ambition, and they can set and work for long-term goals, not just daily ones. I should never underestimate my kids, especially when they truly commit to a goal of their own.
For instance, I played football as a young kid and injured not only my body but my desire to play team sports, so football was not a good experience that I have ever encouraged upon my own kids. So, it surprised me when I came home from work one day and my wife told me that my eight-year-old wanted to play three hours of football a week… for the entire year. OK. Sure. As long as it motivates him to stop requesting to use our phones for entertainment (the answer to this request is almost always “no”).
My eight-year-old’s goal to play football has reaffirmed a few truths about kids and goals:
1. As explained above, when a kid comes up with a goal, he is more likely to be intensely motivated to reach that goal, even when you try and talk him out of it.
2. Kids are young, and their goals will likely need to be adjusted and refined.
3. Kids are young, and they need a lot of support, so their goals will likely be your goals too, to an extent (but hopefully not too much so).
With these principles in mind, here’s how the first three weeks of my eight-year-old’s goal (i.e. my goal) have gone:
Week 1: After our eight-year-old played football a bit on his own during the week, we parents got wrapped into playing almost two hours of weekend scrimmage and pass in the front yard, but we reached the three hours. The first hour was mostly fun, but the second hour got a bit rough. “Can we go in now?” “Do you want to reach your goal?” With a little encouragement, my eight-year-old reached that week’s portion of his yearly goal. Afterward, I tried to talk him down to less than the three hours, but he balked at that idea.
Week 2: Same procrastination but even less time to play football. It is January, and the weekend brought bitter cold, so my son and I spent almost two and a half hours throwing what felt like a chunk of ice. Not exactly fun. Actually pretty painful. Afterward, I explained to my son that he needed to play for 15 minutes a day at school during recess to lessen the weekend load on Dad. OK. Got it. My suggestion never materialized. It wasn’t his goal.
Week 3: Same procrastination but even less commitment from Dad to reach the goal. “Son, I am not going to play three hours of football with you again. We can’t do this every weekend.” So, he went outside, played with our five-year-old for maybe a half hour, and it unfortunately looked like January 19 would be the death of my eight-year-old’s goal. Unless I helped him each week or we recalibrated amd adjusted his goal.
Plan moving forward: I’ve helped him readjust his goal. The goal is now one hour a week, as adjusted by my son… after some kind parental guidance. Three hours was ambitious, but possibly a bit too much to do on his own. Maybe it did not follow as well as it could have the S-M-A-R-T goal principles (especially, perhaps, the reasonable part):
S: Specific (simple, sensible, significant).
M: Measurable (meaningful, motivating).
A: Achievable (agreed, attainable).
R: Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based).
T: Time bound (time-based, time limited, time/cost limited, timely, time-sensitive).
We live and learn, and there is success even when we come up short. My son’s goal (or our goal that I refuse to give three hours to each weekend) got my kid to learn more about diligence and commitment. He played with a chuck of ice for near three hours straight, for example, wanting to cry for pain. And his skills have definitely improved. He doesn’t squirm in fear when I throw a football to his face. He catches it. Or at last makes a noble effort. And when he throws the ball back, it arrives in a tight spiral half the time. Miraculous. Moving forward, an hour a week will go a long way over the next year. This may blossom into his ultimate goal of making it to the NFL.
I’m no expert, but I know the value of goals and will keep exploring goals with my kids as part of our family’s quest for healthy recreational activities.
How do you help your kids set goals? How do you use daily or long-term goals to motivate your kids to get outdoors and enjoy using their little bodies? I’d love to be parented on my parenting.