ASK A TEACHER
Goal Setting

with Nancy Downing

Q:  With the New Year upon us how can I, as a parent, help my children set goals for
themselves?

A:  The timing is perfect.  New Year’s Resolutions are your answer.  But this year why not try something
different?  How many people do you know who have stuck to their resolution for more than a month….
two months tops?  So this year alter the New Year’s Resolution just a little.  Make a FAMILY
RESOLUTION!  Sit down together and ask each member of the family to give one resolution.  

Here are a few suggestions:

  • Place a large dry erase board on the refrigerator.  Put a column for each member of the family
    with his/her name at the top. When someone does a good deed for another, the recipient of the
    deed writes the good deed under that person’s name. Everyone in the family will be able to read
    the list of kind gestures, and you’ll be surprised at how fast the board will start to fill up.  Decide
    how and when you as a family want to share the board’s contents.

  • Once a week have the family gather together for no less than 10 minutes but no longer than 30
    minutes.  Each member will say one nice thing about the other members of the family. (Bro, I
    really think that it is awesome how you can type so fast on the computer.  Sis, that was nice when
    you helped our neighbor carry in her groceries.  Dad, thanks for working so hard.  Mom, it feels
    good when you hug me.)

  • One day (24 hours) a month all televisions in the household will remain OFF.  This includes DVD
    players and video games.  It will be tough at first, but if everyone sticks with it, there may be
    some family “bonding time."

These are just a few examples.  Your family will be able to customize resolutions that will fit your
wishes.  Just start out with one.  If after a few months, you as a family want to take on another
resolution, do so.  Be successful with one first.

Copyright © by Nancy Downing.  All rights reserved.
Nancy has been an educator for 30 years and is currently a special education teacher.  
She is the former Center Director of LearningRx in Little Rock, Arkansas. She has
received local, state, and national recognition for her development of Downfeld
Phonics, a multi-sensory reading program.  Nancy also wrote curriculum for an
educational technology company.   

Nancy is a single mother of three children:  one with learning differences, one gifted,
and one who has to work for his grades.  Not only does she know what it is like to teach
all these different learning styles at school, but she has the experience of dealing with
all aspects of each twenty-four seven.  
Train a child in the way he should go,  
and when he is old he will not turn from it.
(Proverbs 22:6)
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