The beginning of the year is the perfect time to make some changes! As New Year’s resolutions become more popular, your children may be more interested in participating in making New Year’s resolutions. Whether you personally make resolutions or not, we’ve gathered a few tips on how to help your kids make resolutions of their own.
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Make It a Family Affair
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Gather around the table and celebrate the New Year while discussing your resolutions together. Go around the table and have each person share something that they are proud of from the last year, and something they’d like to work on in the upcoming year. Keep the discussion positive so that your children will be more excited to make and keep their resolutions.
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When you discuss together, you’ll be able to help each other come up with resolutions. You’ll also be more aware of each other’s resolutions and will be able to encourage each other throughout the year. You can make individual resolutions, family resolutions, or both!
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Don’t Push It
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If you have a specific item you want your child to work on this year, don’t push them toward it. You can make small suggestions to help them decide what they want to work on. You want this to be a positive experience and not something that they dread.
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Make Baby Steps
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Make resolutions that you can accomplish with baby steps. For example, instead of saying “I will eat healthier,” make a resolution of eating one serving of fruit or veggies with breakfast and dinner. You’re stepping toward your bigger goal of eating healthier, but it doesn’t seem like such a tough resolution. It makes it easier for children to get excited about it if they have a specific goal rather than a larger, vaguer goal.
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Narrow It Down
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Children may get a little excited and begin making a long list of what they want to work on this year. The bigger the list, the more difficult it is to keep those resolutions. Help them narrow it down to just a few resolutions that they can focus on.
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Be An Example
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If you make resolutions with your children, keep them! Children follow in the footsteps of adults, so if you decide to ditch the resolutions, they will too! Be encouraging to them and yourself. You can make a master list of resolutions to hang up in the house as a reminder throughout the year. Your children will see it and be reminded of their resolutions as well.
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If one of your resolutions is to spend more quality time with your kids, bring them over to Funderland! Our new season begins Jan. 16 (weather permitting)! We’ll see you there!
