Resolutions or Goals?

At this time of year everyone talks about their resolutions and how long will they last or how long until they break their resolutions. As a kid, my family didn't have resolutions - we had goals. On either New Year's Eve or New Year's Day we would sit down and write out our individual goals for the year for each activity that we were involved with. This meant church, scouts, 4-H, school, etc. we set a goal for each one. Well I have carried this over into my own family, but until this year we have been having family goals so that the boys could learn how to decide what a goal was and as a family we worked at some of our goals from last year, but we failed at some too.

GOALS

Some of our goals had timing on them and others just had more or less as terms in the written goal. Some of our goals from last year were
- to go bike riding more often (didn't happen as much as we wanted because it seemed our Jeep was in the shop a lot this year)
- Less screen time
- to go Geocaching or Letterboxing twice a month (weather permitting)
- eat more veggies and fruits and try new ones

Now these are just some examples of what we have done. Now this year, Robert will be writing his own goals for the activities that he is involved with. It is amazing how much you can really accomplish if you set the goal out there. For kids (depending on their age) it could be to improve 1 letter grade on report card, to learn to tie their shoes (Garrett's current goal), to learn their address, or to complete a certain level or rank in scouts. These are all things that kids can work to achieve and if they don't succeed this year, there is always next year that maybe they can carry over their goal or continue to work towards. As a parent I do try to encourage the boys to make sure they have goals that are achievable - unlike Garrett who wants to take a vacation to the moon.- I told him that it wasn't available , yet, maybe when he was much older. But I do think that tying his shoes is one that he will be able to achieve if he works at it!

So does your family make goals? How do you help your kids look forward to the things they can achieve?