It's the New Year. Have you taken the time to discuss goals with your child? I don’t mean just material ones like a new bike or more games for the gaming system. I means true goals that you might like to help them achieve and perhaps goals they might like as well. Right around this time of year I like to ask kids in my practice what they would like to get done. Surprisingly even kids as young as first grade can select a goal in most areas when asked. The goals might include things like learning sight words, math facts, reading more books or even improving at a sport. They can also include behaviors you might like to see more or less of…like following directions, improvement in keeping a cleaner room or remembering to feed the dog. Once your child has selected the goal, find a way to help them create a vision board…with pictures of the clean room, happy dog, better math score on it. Keep it in their rooms. Check in every week with how they are doing on their goals. Encourage them to share these with their other parent. When you do this you are teaching a tool they can utilize their entire life. When they make improvements…remember to make a big deal about it so they can experience pride. You are teaching them to dream. As they get older you can help them re-define their dreams to reflect growing older…eventually helping them dream their future career and more adult accomplishments.