Every year, many of us set new goals for ourselves. While some of these goals may be around career or relationships, others may be related to health and other important aspects of our lives. But what if we ask you what parenting goals have you set for yourself? Well, if you don’t have an answer to that then you must read this post ‘to the T,’ as it will help you understand the importance of setting parenting goals, the steps involved in the process and the pillars of parenting goals you must keep in mind when determining your goals. Read on to learn more.

Why Setting Parenting Goals Is Important

Parenting a child without having pre-defined parenting goals is like shooting in the dark. And that’s the last thing you want for your child’s future. Right?

As a parent, you cannot be unsure about what you want to achieve for your child. Having parenting goals will not just help you get direction, but it will also help you stay focussed, thereby making the journey much easier. 

Here are some other reasons for setting parental goals.

• Removes ambiguity
• Helps parents stay focussed.
• Allows measurement of progress from time to time.
• Provides motivation

How To Set And Achieve Your Parenting Goals?

Here are the steps that will help you set your parenting goals. Read on.  

Step 1: Know what you want

The first step is to set up a realistic goal that will work. And that’s possible only when you are clear about what you want to accomplish as a parent. The goal can be anything, ranging from helping your child get better grades to developing more trust with your child. Once you are convinced that the goal will be beneficial for your child, simply go ahead and set it, don’t overthink.

Step 2:  Define it, once you know it

Once you are sure about the areas that you need to work on, as a parent, it is time for you to define a goal for yourself. Defining your goals will help you set your target and make it easier for you to achieve them. Setting parenting goals will also help you determine what changes you need to bring in yourself to be able to achieve your goals more easily. For example, if you want to teach discipline to your child, you need to lead by example.

Step 3: Have an action plan

The final step is to prepare an action plan that will help you achieve your parenting goals. If you are overwhelmed by your goals, and they seem too big to accomplish, then it’s advisable to break them down into smaller, easier to achieve bits, that seem less intimidating. Once done, identify small steps that you need to take to achieve those smaller goals.

Note - When building your action plan, you must also keep in mind the strengths and weaknesses of your child.

What Are The Pillars Of Parenting Goals?

1. Practice What You Preach

Children learn a lot by observing their parents, and therefore, it’s important that you follow what you teach. Also, if you would have observed, you would know that children tend to pick bad habits more easily than picking the good ones. So make sure you don’t lie or make any lame excuses if you want your child to be truthful. Similarly you must avoid being rude or using inappropriate language.

2. Love Unconditionally

Love your children unconditionally, but don’t confuse love with leniency or material abundance. Love can have a number of manifestations, and therefore, it is on the parent to decide how to show this love to their children in the right way without being over-indulgent.

3. Increase Your Involvement in Your Child’s Life

Parents are completely involved in their child’s life during the early stages. But as the children grow up, parents tend to lessen their involvement in their child’s life. That may be because the parents think that the child is capable enough to take care of their own needs and may also need some space. But that’s not right. In fact, parents must increase their involvement as their children need more guidance, motivation and a restraining force, during this period.

4. Be supportive

The most important pillar of parenting is to support your child’s choices. Simply knowing about your child’s unique talents, abilities, strengths, and weaknesses is not enough. You also need to learn to appreciate their talent and abilities. Appreciate your children when they achieve something or do something good. Encourage your child to do what they like, instead of pushing them to do something that may not interest them.

Help Your Child Realize Their Dream with Aviva’s Kid-O-Scope

As a parent your ultimate goal might be to help your child realize their dream. We at Aviva understand this, and to help you meet this goal, we have developed a unique platform ‘Kidoscope’ that will provide personalized advice to you based on your child’s assessment reports. These reports will help you identify your child’s strengths, abilities, interest areas and personality traits, thereby helping you understand your child’s dream profession.

Once you know what your child really wants to be, you can use kidoscope’s education cost calculator to find out the current and future cost of education that your child needs for pursuing their dream. The calculator can also help you understand the investments you need to make to meet your child’s future education costs.

Need Help?

If you need help to identify your child’s true potential, then sign-up for Aviva’s Kidoscope by simply sharing a few details with us.  In case you have already determined the future cost of your child’s education and need help to invest in a child plan that can help you achieve your investment goal, speak to one of our experts at 1800-103-7766. Go on, it doesn’t take much to know what your child’s goals could turn into!

AN Aug 02/18

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