Helping Your Child Pick—and Stick—to Their New Year’s Resolutions
As we will say goodbye to 2018 and welcome the new year, it is a time to consider New Year’s Resolutions. While many utilize their New Year’s resolutions to help spur on weight loss and other healthy habits, they can also serve as an important learning lesson for kids.
Why Make a New Year’s Resolution?
When you take away the term “New Year’s resolution,” the basic principles behind it are setting goals and achieving those goals. This is something that all children can benefit from—and even enjoy!
Many may think having your child come up with a New Year’s resolution is a bit excessive or overambitious, but childhood can be the best time to teach new habits. Although adults may make resolutions and not stick to them throughout the year, this does not necessarily mean that children will follow suit.
Helping Your Child Succeed
One of the best ways to help your kids pick and stick to a New Year’s resolution is to encourage them to consider something fun and measurable. You should also guide them toward narrowing down the list to their top three resolutions, including only things that are realistic and achievable.
There are four areas that are ideal for establishing goals:
- Personal goals
- Friendship goals
- Helping goals
- School goals
We are the greatest example for our children, so if we serve as a good role model in the resolution department, they are likely to follow suit. Remember, it takes six weeks to create a habit!
New Year’s Resolution Ideas for Kids
There are plenty of excellent New Year’s resolution ideas for children that are fun, healthy, challenging and positive. The one area you may want to steer your child away from are material goals.
Here are some ideas that may work for your child:
- Invite someone from school or an after-school program over twice a month
- Spend at least one day a month, if not more, unplugged from technology
- Help cook one healthy meal two times a month
- Read two new books per month
- Learn or improve a skill, such as public speaking
- Participate in more physical activity
- Perform a random act of kindness once a month
- Maintain a certain letter grade average throughout the year
Goal setting and achieving those goals are just two of the many life skills children need to learn in order to lead successful lives. Drama Kids International is proud to offer drama programs for children that can help them learn other important life skills, such as leadership, public speaking and self-confidence.
How Kids Can Give Back Over the Holidays
The holiday season is upon us. Finding the perfect gift and spending quality time with your family are probably two of the more pressing issues on your mind. What if we told you there was a way to easily achieve both at one time?
Volunteering during the holiday season is a way to do just that! You’ll not only enjoy quality time together, but you’ll also be giving the perfect gift to those in need!
How Volunteering Benefits Kids
There are plenty of benefits for children who volunteer, including:
- Making them more likely to make positive, healthy choices
- Helping enhance self-esteem
- Improving psychological well-being
- Encouraging compassion and altruism
- Providing experiential learning opportunities
- Helping children experience and appreciate diversity
- Teaching valuable life skills
And the benefits of participating in a community service project aren’t just limited to the ones we’ve listed!
Ideas for Holiday Volunteering
No matter the age of your children, there are always simple ways they can volunteer and help out the community.
If you have a younger child, he or she can help pick out non-perishable food items that can be donated to a food bank, decorate cards for soldiers overseas or children who are in hospitals, or even stuff new socks with items that homeless men and women could be given when passed on the streets.
Older children can donate gently used books and DVDs to local children’s hospitals, schedule a visit to a nursing home and interact with the residents, or host a hot chocolate or cider stand from which the proceeds are donated to a local charity.
Keeping the Volunteer Spirit Year-round
It’s great to volunteer with your kids throughout the holiday season, but keeping that effort going year-round is a fantastic goal to have!
By keeping some form of volunteering on your family’s schedule, you’re helping your child learn that it’s not about what you have, but about empathy and the value of giving to others.
You can help encourage your child’s altruistic side by letting him or her pick a cause to support and discussing the difference between donating time and money. Both are valuable donations for the cause/charity of your family’s choosing, but it’s still important for your child to learn the difference between the two types of donating.
Looking for other ways to inspire your child to become his or her best self? Check out the programs Drama Kids International offers that are specially designed to help kids gain valuable life skills.
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