Why Your Children Should Start Making New Year Resolutions

New Year resolutions are often associated with adults striving for self-improvement, and let’s face it, most of us are not that great at keeping them. Despite this, experts say that age-appropriate goal-setting for children can have positive effects on their development. They include helping them make good decisions, build confidence, foster resilience, improve problem-solving skills and cultivate a growth mindset. 

The key is to help them make age-appropriate, achievable goals, and the entire exercise in fact presents a great parenting opportunity. Perhaps you’d like junior (or even the entire family) to make certain behaviours habitual, such as waking up on time on weekdays or choosing healthy food options. This can become a team effort; it is also a fun opportunity to find out what your child wants to do better in the new year. 

1. Start young!

Christine Carter, author of Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents, suggests that kids between seven and 12 are at the ideal age for resolution-making. Children in this age range are old enough to appreciate the benefits of a resolution and are open to accepting their parents’ guidance. If your preschooler appears to understand the concept, you can even start the practice earlier in a bite-sized manner. 

2. Set age-appropriate resolutions

For a preschooler, consider small achievable goals such as “I will keep my toys away after playtime every day”, or “I will take my dishes to the kitchen after I’m done eating.” For primary school kids, perhaps more specific outcomes in terms of frequency and quantity can apply, such as “I will play a sport at least three times a week” or “I will drink six cups or water every day.” Older kids like pre-teens and teenagers can be tasked with less tangible resolutions, such as “I will speak to an adult I can trust when I feel stressed out about a difficult decision or situation”, or “I will choose the friends I hang out with wisely—only people who are respectful and kind to me, just like I will be respectful and kind to them.”

3. Keep it positive

Nagging doesn’t work here. Keep your tone encouraging when setting the resolution. Rather than pointing out weaknesses, highlight the things your child has done well and ask what he or she would like to work on next year. The resolution should be phrased positively, meaning it should begin with “I will…” or “I’m going to…” instead of “I will stop…” or “I will not…”. 

4. Suggest, not dictate

Think of yourself as a life coach and cheerleader for your child in this arena, instead of a lecturer or enforcer. Ultimately, you want your kid to develop the life skill of setting goals for themselves, so offer more guidance and less instruction. Let them arrive at making the final resolution themselves. But you can help along the way by suggesting an area of change (such as personal growth, relational, academic or lifestyle) and help them to refine or clarify their ideas, and ultimately making sure the goal is appropriate and achievable. Allow them to share their thoughts and desires instead of seeing this as an opportunity to impose a specific change on them.

5. Make goals short and SMART 

As with our own adult resolutions, children’s goals need to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound (SMART), so ditch the vague and fluffy resolutions like “I will be nicer to my friends” or “I will become sportier”.  Instead encourage them to make quantifiable goals such as “I will play basketball twice a week and swim five laps twice a week.” Keeping the list short is also important, because it is so hard to stay motivated to achieving a long list of resolutions. Aim for three to five (or even fewer) resolutions that your child is likely to follow through with. 

6. Stick them up

Kids fare best with a visual reminder of their resolutions. Grab an A4 (or larger) piece of paper and have them pen their resolutions in a striking colour and size. Then put up the poster where everyone can see it every day. Everyone in the family can do the same, cheering each other on and keeping one another accountable. 

While checking in is important, refrain from nagging your kids about their resolutions. Also, don’t bribe or “reward” them when it comes to resolutions, because this can undermine their intrinsic motivation. If they falter, reassure them that this is part of the process and how they can continue to work on their goals even with the occasional slip-up! 

7. Lead by example 

As most other things, you’re going to have to lead your children by role modelling. Share your own new year resolutions with them and explain why you’ve made them in very honest and age-appropriate terms. For example, “Mummy’s goal is to exercise three times a week because I’ve gained some weight this year and I really want to be healthier and fitter so I feel less tired when I run around with you.” And if you hope for them to be on time for school every day for instance, it helps if  you are a punctual person yourself.