In Discipline
with Respect, I recommend parents set goals after identifying
the behavioral lessons they would like their children to learn by a certain
age. Setting goals is a good idea for adults and children. When parents set goals, they also serve as role models for their children.
Anytime is a good time to set goals. So, if you are reading
this at the beginning of a year or at another time, the psychological value of
goal-setting remains important to helping people make achievable life-changes.
Daphna Oyeserman (USC) and her team studied the effects of
measuring time on planning for a future event like saving for retirement. It
turns out that the way participants “framed” time influenced their plans to
take action. Instead of thinking in terms of years, it might be best to think
in terms of days (Psychological
Science). And its best to think in terms of months rather than years.
Parents can apply this kind of thinking to behavioral goals.
For example, if you want your child to develop financial responsibility by age
16 and your child just turned 12, you might think 4-years is far in the
future—and you have plenty of time. But if you think in terms of days (1,465),
you might be more inclined to make a list of tasks to improve the odds your
teen will have the self-discipline and other skills crucial to responsible
financial behavior. Fortunately, many parents help children develop responsible
financial behavior before age 12. Unfortunately, some children grow up with a limited
understanding.
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There are other factors to help adults and children reach
their goals. As I mention in Discipline with Respect, goals should
be realistic, specific, measurable, and dated. I also recommend working on only
2-3 goals at a time.
1. Realistic goals
are those a person can reach with additional effort and encouragement. Most of
us can increase our exercise by a small percentage of steps or minutes,
decrease our consumption of sugar treats, increase our savings by a small
percentage, help one additional person, and so forth.
2. Specific goals are stated in precise language
such as units of money saved, pounds of weight lost or gained, words written, pages
read, days of temper outbursts, or steps walked.
3. Measuring progress
is easy for those goals having natural units as mentioned above. Other goals
may require some additional thought. You may come up with a quality rating
instead of a concrete number. For example, you could ask for feedback on the
quality of a quilting project from expert quilters. I often ask for feedback on
my writing projects, which helps me gauge how close I am to reaching
publication quality before submitting a paper to a journal editor. The chapter
on feedback can help parents give specific feedback to children on their
behavior.
4. Finally, we help ourselves when we attach a date to a goal. As suggested in the research study above,
we might be better to think in terms of
days rather than years. Parents and teachers can help children by thinking
in terms of 90 days to complete a project.
You may be able to tell from this post that Discipline
with Respect is about developing responsible behavior. Although I discuss
the usual principles of how to use consequences in discipline programs, I view
discipline as education—all the things we do to help children become mature,
responsible, and respectful adults.
Connections
and Links to Resources
TWITTER @Geoff.W.Sutton
LinkedIN Geoffrey Sutton PhD
Publications (many
free downloads)
Academia Geoff W Sutton (PhD)
ResearchGate Geoffrey W Sutton
(PhD)
