We often hope to experience the new year with excitement and fun plans for the year to come. For many, making a new year’s resolution is a way of doing that. It can also be an opportunity.
What do you want to see changed in your life? Your job, weight, health, social life, hobbies? Making a new year’s resolution for yourself is easy. (Keeping it… now that’s another story altogether.)
But how about family resolutions? Have you ever made a resolution with a group before? Are there things at home you would like to improve or work on? And what would your child(ren) like to do in the upcoming year?
One fun and healthy way to set family resolutions is to simply sit down with the kids and ask a few questions such as: What do you like about us as a family and want to keep the same next year? And: What would you like to change or do differently next year? Write them down somewhere they can be seen and make goals reachable.
We all know how good it feels to work hard over time and reach a goal. Children also achieve a sense of accomplishment and learn a valuable life lesson about setting goals for themselves that can help them later in life. If any of your family resolutions are specific such as “going for a family walk once a week,” “practicing on my instrument for 10 min a day,” “family dinner 3 times a week,” “room cleaned every Sunday when mom checks it,” or “saying 3 nice things to my sister each week,” find a way to keep track so kids can enjoy their progress. Humans love achieving set goals. While we may not always enjoy the path to getting there, the end of the road is well worth it!