Download the file to the right if a visual organizer would be helpful as you reflect on your progress.
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Using reflection for planning
Take time for you and your child to use data analysis and thoughtful reflection to determine whether you should revise your plan, find a way to maintain progress, envisage when and where you can generalize the new habit or skill, or celebrate accomplishments. Decide which of the following changes, if any, you need to make.
Change the Goal
Sometimes the goal needs to be changed. Your child may not have been clear on what the expectations were, how challenging the goal would be, or the amount of time and energy reaching the goal would entail. Use what you learned from the unsuccessful attempt to inform your discussion of a revised goal.
Treat goal revision as another skill that you and your child can develop together. It is not unusual for goals to be revised as we learn from our successive attempts to reach it. It is important that we set goals that cause us a litte, but not too much, stress in order to reach them. It may take a few attempts to learn how to set goals well. Have conversations with your child about how, just like everything else, it takes practice to do well at goal-setting.
Change the plan
Developing a plan for self-regulation is a skill. The ability to create a new plan or make adjustment to an old plan as needed are critical skills in long-term self-regulation. Look at your plan components carefully and discuss them fully with each other. This is not an exercise in establishing blame. Rather, it is an opportunity to learn about what works and what does not. It is an opportunity to see how to analyze data. It is an opportunity to learn how to accept criticism and to assess our own effort in effective ways.
First, identify obstacles and distractions that hindered success. Focus especially on what happened. Even as adults, we sometimes know why we do what we do, but sometimes we do not. Kids may know why they do something, but they honestly may not know why. It may be necessary to walk your child through the process step-by-step. For example:
Third, discuss the thoughts and feelings your child has in different situations as he strives to make the plan work. If he is using self-defeating thoughts (I can't do this; This is too hard; This isn't fair; This is stupid; I'll show her) decide on words and phrases he can use to substitute for the self-defeating thoughts. A thorough discussion of negative beliefs and how yoru child can develop beliefs that will support accomplishment can be found on our Mindset for Accomplishment site.
Reinvigorate the effort
A lack of sufficient effort can spring from different sources. It may be that your child was simply overconfident. Or, your child may have realized how entrenched old habits were or how much effort changing habits can be. In either case, your conversatons can be about the importance of commitment and the value of persistence. Offering a personal example of the effort you have had to invest in changing a habit of your own may be helpful.
Even when children are successful, vigilance is a concern. Often, we are able to be successful at a plan as long as we are attentive to what we are doing and vigilant in our efforts. However, we generally do not remain vigilant toward one self-regulaton skill over an extended period of time. Re-charging the energy drain comes from support and purposeful analysis and planning.
It is a complex concern in and of itself when your child does not put forth the effort because of a lack of motivation. If this is the case, we suggest that you use the tools available on our Motivation for Accomplishment website.
Create more advanced goals
If you have been successful you can revise your goal to make it more challenging or to enhance your skill set. If you have reached a goal, it may be time to move the goal post using the same goal. If the goal was to turn in 80 percent of his work on time, you can move it up to 90 percent. Negotiating on a new standard for success helps your child learn to strive for ever higher levels of accomplishment.
You may reach a goal that is satisfactory in the area of self-regulation where you have been working. This may be an excellent time to reflect on whether here is another challenge or skill set worthy of the effort it will take to create a new habit. It is important, though, that you and your child do not set a goal just for the sake of setting a goal. As well as setting the right level of challenge, goals need to be purposeful and authentic. Goals should be established so that reaching the goals will enrich your child's development.
Maintain success
You may have created a habit that is accomplishing all that you hoped to accomplish. Then, it will be important to revise your planning so that you are able to maintain that change over time. Talk to your child about maintaining his skills once he has accomplished a goal. Some kids are not familiar with how to handle success. They glow in the praise they recieve for demonstrating a new personal skill, but then relax their efforts because they feel as if they have arrived at their destination. In truth, they have just completed the first leg of the journey. We have all watched a favorite sports team lose a game they should have won due to complacency after a win streak.
Though it is important to celebrate your child's accomplishments, success also needs to be assessed to determine what we can learn from it. Then, we must discuss how we can apply what we learned to maintaining our new level of success. It may be especially important to carefully monitor performance right after a goal has been reached in order to assure that complacency does not lead to a reversal. Your child may have particular difficulty handling a reversal and may even try to hide it because he has already gotten the praise for being successful.
As noted before, sometimes we are successful at a strategy because we dedicate a level of vigilance to the effort that we cannot maintain over time. It is simply very draining and there are too many other demands on our attention. The objective of learning self-regulation skills is not to reach the short-term goal, the objective is to establish long-term habits. It is important that we maintain our practice and take time to reflect from time to time until what once took vigilance becomes a familiar habit.
Generalize the new skill or habit
This conversation can be held right after a child is successful or when your child faces a new but similar challenge. The question is whether what she learned from achieving one goal can be applied to a new goal. There may be a direct application of what she learned from the previous success. Or she may be able to modify the succesful strategy so that it applies to a new challenge.
Celebrate the accomplishment
Celebration is not simply giving rewards. It involves acknowledging, discussing, and learning from success!
Congratulate your child on a job well done:
- Change the goal
- Change the plan
- Reinvigorate the effort
- Create a more advanced goal
- Maintain success
- Generalize the habit
- Celebrate success
Change the Goal
Sometimes the goal needs to be changed. Your child may not have been clear on what the expectations were, how challenging the goal would be, or the amount of time and energy reaching the goal would entail. Use what you learned from the unsuccessful attempt to inform your discussion of a revised goal.
Treat goal revision as another skill that you and your child can develop together. It is not unusual for goals to be revised as we learn from our successive attempts to reach it. It is important that we set goals that cause us a litte, but not too much, stress in order to reach them. It may take a few attempts to learn how to set goals well. Have conversations with your child about how, just like everything else, it takes practice to do well at goal-setting.
Change the plan
Developing a plan for self-regulation is a skill. The ability to create a new plan or make adjustment to an old plan as needed are critical skills in long-term self-regulation. Look at your plan components carefully and discuss them fully with each other. This is not an exercise in establishing blame. Rather, it is an opportunity to learn about what works and what does not. It is an opportunity to see how to analyze data. It is an opportunity to learn how to accept criticism and to assess our own effort in effective ways.
First, identify obstacles and distractions that hindered success. Focus especially on what happened. Even as adults, we sometimes know why we do what we do, but sometimes we do not. Kids may know why they do something, but they honestly may not know why. It may be necessary to walk your child through the process step-by-step. For example:
- When you walk through the classroom door, what do you do first?
- What do you do to get your materials ready for the class?
- What else are you doing during the time you are supposed to be getting ready for class?
- What do you do when you do not have something you need (a pencil, a worksheet, a book, etc.)?
- When you are not sure of what to do, what question do you ask the teacher?
Third, discuss the thoughts and feelings your child has in different situations as he strives to make the plan work. If he is using self-defeating thoughts (I can't do this; This is too hard; This isn't fair; This is stupid; I'll show her) decide on words and phrases he can use to substitute for the self-defeating thoughts. A thorough discussion of negative beliefs and how yoru child can develop beliefs that will support accomplishment can be found on our Mindset for Accomplishment site.
Reinvigorate the effort
A lack of sufficient effort can spring from different sources. It may be that your child was simply overconfident. Or, your child may have realized how entrenched old habits were or how much effort changing habits can be. In either case, your conversatons can be about the importance of commitment and the value of persistence. Offering a personal example of the effort you have had to invest in changing a habit of your own may be helpful.
Even when children are successful, vigilance is a concern. Often, we are able to be successful at a plan as long as we are attentive to what we are doing and vigilant in our efforts. However, we generally do not remain vigilant toward one self-regulaton skill over an extended period of time. Re-charging the energy drain comes from support and purposeful analysis and planning.
It is a complex concern in and of itself when your child does not put forth the effort because of a lack of motivation. If this is the case, we suggest that you use the tools available on our Motivation for Accomplishment website.
Create more advanced goals
If you have been successful you can revise your goal to make it more challenging or to enhance your skill set. If you have reached a goal, it may be time to move the goal post using the same goal. If the goal was to turn in 80 percent of his work on time, you can move it up to 90 percent. Negotiating on a new standard for success helps your child learn to strive for ever higher levels of accomplishment.
You may reach a goal that is satisfactory in the area of self-regulation where you have been working. This may be an excellent time to reflect on whether here is another challenge or skill set worthy of the effort it will take to create a new habit. It is important, though, that you and your child do not set a goal just for the sake of setting a goal. As well as setting the right level of challenge, goals need to be purposeful and authentic. Goals should be established so that reaching the goals will enrich your child's development.
Maintain success
You may have created a habit that is accomplishing all that you hoped to accomplish. Then, it will be important to revise your planning so that you are able to maintain that change over time. Talk to your child about maintaining his skills once he has accomplished a goal. Some kids are not familiar with how to handle success. They glow in the praise they recieve for demonstrating a new personal skill, but then relax their efforts because they feel as if they have arrived at their destination. In truth, they have just completed the first leg of the journey. We have all watched a favorite sports team lose a game they should have won due to complacency after a win streak.
Though it is important to celebrate your child's accomplishments, success also needs to be assessed to determine what we can learn from it. Then, we must discuss how we can apply what we learned to maintaining our new level of success. It may be especially important to carefully monitor performance right after a goal has been reached in order to assure that complacency does not lead to a reversal. Your child may have particular difficulty handling a reversal and may even try to hide it because he has already gotten the praise for being successful.
As noted before, sometimes we are successful at a strategy because we dedicate a level of vigilance to the effort that we cannot maintain over time. It is simply very draining and there are too many other demands on our attention. The objective of learning self-regulation skills is not to reach the short-term goal, the objective is to establish long-term habits. It is important that we maintain our practice and take time to reflect from time to time until what once took vigilance becomes a familiar habit.
Generalize the new skill or habit
This conversation can be held right after a child is successful or when your child faces a new but similar challenge. The question is whether what she learned from achieving one goal can be applied to a new goal. There may be a direct application of what she learned from the previous success. Or she may be able to modify the succesful strategy so that it applies to a new challenge.
Celebrate the accomplishment
Celebration is not simply giving rewards. It involves acknowledging, discussing, and learning from success!
Congratulate your child on a job well done:
- Recognize the effort he put into accomplishing the goal
- Let him know what you appreciate and enjoy about his success
- Talk to him about the personal skills (persistence, focus, resiliency) he demonstrated
- How he feels about his success
- What he thinks helped him to be successful
- What techniques he used to overcome obstacles, stay on-track, and persevere
- How he can use what he has learned in other situations or in the future