Successful
Tweens -
Teaching your kid to set and reach inspiring goals.
by Roger Leslie
PARENTGUIDE News January 2004
Life is a huge banquet; success is the smorgasbord
laid out before us. There’s more than enough
food and a place setting for everybody. Being
born is our invitation to the feast. But does
life predestine some people to sit at the dining
table enjoying the feast while the rest are stuck
at the kids’ table with only tiny portions
of the good stuff? Even tweens know the answer—
of course not.
How do we get all tweens, not just the naturally
gregarious and ambitious, to partake in life’s
feast? By teaching and modeling this five-step
goal setting process:
Imagine. Unsuccessful people complain about
how things are. Successful people imagine how
they could be. Before the invention of the light
bulb, I bet many people complained about how little
illumination they got from candles and oil lamps.
Instead of complaining about the problem, Edison
sought a solution and eventually improved life
for all of civilization.
Help tweens reframe their thinking. When they
complain, encourage them to imagine new outcomes.
Choose. Good ideas come into our imagination
all the time. But our lives don’t begin
to improve until we choose what we want to do
or be. Because they’ve always had a parent
or guardian doing it for them, tweens have little
experience making meaningful choices.
Encourage tweens and provide opportunities for
them to choose. Use this variation of the banquet
analogy: “If you went into an ice cream
shop and stood at the counter, it wouldn’t
matter how much money you had; if you don’t
tell the clerk what you want, you don’t
get anything. Eventually she might feel sorry
for you and give you a free sample on one of those
tiny spoons. People who complain about not getting
what they want in life are the samplers. Those
who are shoveling in mounds of ice cream dripping
with hot fudge and whipped cream and dotted with
nuts and rainbow sprinkles walked up to the counter
and made a choice. Choosing what you want in life
is the first step to getting it.”
After sharing the story, take your tweens for
ice cream to practice making choices. The exercise
is easy, familiar, unthreatening and you get dessert!
Set goals. Once we choose what we want,
the fastest way to get it is by setting goals.
Make it a family routine for everyone to write
down personal goals and pursue them. Writing down
what you want creates a road map to take you exactly
where you want to go.
On a sheet of paper, compose a goal statement.
Make the goal specific. Word the goal positively.
Use an action verb so the objective is clear.
Include a deadline. The clearer your goal, the
easier it is to achieve. Here are examples of
some weak goals made stronger:
I can
practice the piano every day.
I
will play “Ragtime” straight through
with no mistakes by April 27.
I will
swim faster.
I
will race the 50-meter breaststroke in 40 seconds
or less by our swim meet on June 29.
I need
a job this summer.
I
will earn $50 or more every week this summer by
mowing lawns.
Demonstrate the goal-setting process by setting
goals for yourself, too. Make them personal and
as short-term as your tween’s goal.
Take action. Thinking about a goal and
composing a powerful goal statement aren’t
enough. Achieving a goal requires action. Until
we try something, we can’t know if we have
the skill or even a sustained interest to succeed
in that endeavor.
Once you and your tween have written your goals,
start taking action. Be consistent. Schedule time
each week to work on your goals.
Tweens struggle with pursuing activities that
offer delayed gratification. They usually need
immediate results to sustain enthusiasm. But goal
setting is like exercising. It takes some getting
used to. It may cause some initial discomfort,
and results don’t show immediately. Goal-setting
“muscles” might need to warm up awhile
before they become stronger. Eventually, working
on goals feels empowering, and the results look
noticeably impressive.
Until they get to that stage, model persistence
by pursuing your own goals and sharing the personal
growth you recognize in yourself throughout the
process of reaching your goal.
Take risks. To grow, we must risk. Sometimes
risk requires doing what intimidates us. But once
we’ve conquered a fear, we discover more
courage and talent than we knew we had.
Even people born with natural talent must take
risks to succeed. It was probably fun and easy
for Tiger Woods to go to the golfing range with
his Dad and develop his skills. He must have grown
confident very young seeing how well he could
play. But how scary it must have been to play
in his first tournament against older, more experienced
people. How nerve-wracking to be a kid with so
many people watching, and eventually reporters
and TV cameras everywhere. If he didn’t
risk facing his personal fears about competing
against adult professionals, he would never have
become the world’s greatest golfer.
Help tweens decide what risks to take and examine
possible outcomes. Weigh pros and cons so tweens
grasp the difference between pointless thrill-seeking
and stretching beyond the familiar to develop
a new level of skill.
With your instruction and demonstration, tweens
can achieve any goal. Teaching them the process
gives them direction. Modeling the process allows
them to learn by example. Tweens will more readily
trust advice from adults who practice what they
teach. In the end, modeling successful goal setting
not only empowers your tweens, but also allows
you to fulfill more of your own dreams. When you
teach and model the process, everyone benefits.
Roger
Leslie is an author, teacher and librarian. His
goal is to teach people how to succeed and make
any dream come true. His newest book, Success
Express for Teens, contains 50 activities to help
you create the greatest life possible. For more
information about him and his books, visit www.rogerleslie.com.
