Goal Setting for Teenagers
The book "Dreams, Plans, Goals" states that people who set and attain goals are happier than those who have no goals, and, therefore, learning this skill in teen years can provide benefits to your teen.
Other People Are Reading
-
Life Skills
-
Teens learn many life skills, including dating and driving a motor vehicle, and your teen should include learning to set goals among the life skills to acquire during teen years.
Practice
-
Teenhelp.com provides 10 questions for teens to answer to begin establishing goals, with perhaps the three most important being what do I most enjoy doing?, what do I value? and what makes me motivated?
-
Strategies
-
After answering the 10 questions, have your teen state what she wants to do (describe a goal), and identify the necessary steps to attain that goal. For each subsidiary step, as well as the overall goal, help your teen devise a deadline.
Progress
-
Two excellent ways to encourage your teen's new goal-setting skill is to have her regularly report progress toward goals, and to aid your teen in rewarding herself as she meets milestones toward her overall goals.
Example
-
Eduguide.org describes how encouraging teens to set financial goals and allowing them to make goal-related decisions on spending a back-to-school budget, helps teens learn about financial consequences providing a solid foundation for wise monetary decisions in adult life.
-
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Year planning image by Stefano Maccari from Fotolia.com
