Adventures in Parenting

Much of what we’ve been emphasizing so far on our 30 Days to Better Parenting Challenge is building positive messages with our family. I believe a positive atmosphere of love and affirmation can achieve more than negative criticisms.

On the other hand, there of course has to be discipline when warranted.

Today is Day 17 of our 30 Days to Better Parenting Challenge. The task is to set a short term goal sheet for each member of the family in order to develop discipline in areas where we can improve.

Have everyone in the family, adults included, write 3 specific goals they want to accomplish within the next 7 days. For young children, you can set the goal for them. But for older teens, they should set their own goals, although you should give them some guidelines.

These goals should be attainable within 7 days if they apply themselves diligently. The goals should not be too easy such that is it no challenge at all.

Here are some examples of a goal:

Clean out one specific area of the house - a cabinet, a drawer, a shelf.

Read a short book on a topic of interest.

Run a mile a day for 3 days.

Write that thank you note to grandma.

Try a new dessert recipe.

Sweep the patio.

At the end of 7 days, prepare an banana split ice cream sundae dessert. Then share how much you have accomplished. If all 3 goals were met, that person gets as much ice cream and toppings as he wants. If you accomplish 2 of the 3 goals, you get up to 2 scoops of ice cream and 2 toppings. If you’ve only completed one goal, you get 1 scoop of ice cream and 1 topping. If no attempts was even made on working on the goals, they get just the banana.

Well, you can probably come up with some creative ways to give out rewards.

The idea is setting short term goals and having a little celebration together. You’ll be surprised how much you can accomplish once you set your mind to it.