Creating and attaining goals for your child.

As usual, I digress. However, this blog is about having a game plan for you child. No, I am not talking about your IEP goals, or what the consultant or therapists wrote down for you. I am talking about analyzing what you want to change, how to go about changing it, and then measuring your progress. I think the reason people get too scared to set goals for their family and children is that they feel like a failure if that goal is not achieved.

First off, he's not Keyser Soze?

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It's okay to not reach all of your goals, but if you don't have a functional plan to work on improving whatever you are looking to improve, then you're subconsciously undermining your goals. Hopefully this blog will remove some of the fear of failure, and you will be able to set up a good plan for the end of this year.

STEP ONE: So what do you want to change? Do you want your child to talk more? Want a behavior to reduce? Still in potty-training purgatory? All these things take time and NEED a gameplan! Pick one thing to start with. Later, when you're feeling more confident, you can take on more than one goal at a time, but review your progress once every couple of months to see how much you can handle.

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"The Rock" does surprisingly well at the box office.

STEP TWO: After you pick your goal, define it. Please, don't be afraid to be detailed when you DEFINEwhat you want to improve. So you want communication to improve...okay, nice, but how much? Do you want your child to use 3+ words? Do you want your child to use yes/no functionally? You have to have a written (or typed) out, detailed explanation of your goal, or else you don't know what you're measuring.

STEP THREE: Now that you've decided what you want to do, how will you go about changing it? This is where to enlist the help of your consultant, teacher, or therapist to help you devise a good plan. Any provider worth their salt would be glad to help, because the more the child learns in the home setting, the easier it makes behavior interventions overall. There are some good websites for advice on whatever subject you're looking at. Just don't fall too far down the rabbit trail, like I did a couple of months back.

STEP FOUR: Measure progress. Make it simple and easy to keep track of. I'm not asking you to conduct hardcore calculus, just decide that from 1-2pm every day (or every Tuesday) you will measure how many times your child plays with toys appropriately, or how long they sit at the dinner table before they dart off. It is important that the times and days on which you chart behavior are consistent, since the child may act completely different on a Friday afternoon versus a Monday morning. This way, when you get to the end of the month, you can look for trends. Don't be afraid of not reaching your goal right away, but now that you have data you can be a better predictor of what other aspects of your game plan need work.

STEP FIVE: Adjust the goal. Now that you have data, make the necessary changes to increase your likelihood of success. Did you make the goal too easy or hard? Did you think he would sit for this program, but now he's doing something different? That's fine, just be flexible enough to modify your goals, and continue to go over each step to make sure your plan is strong. If the original plan isn't working out the way you anticipated, consider varying your definition of the target behavior for the time being.

STEP SIX: Now repeat steps 1-5, and keep adjusting and fine tuning your plan.

Just remember:

DON'T BE AFRAID TO FAIL, IT'S ALL PART OF THE LEARNING PROCESS!

CHOOSE AN EASIER GOAL FIRST, THEN TRY THE HARDER ONES.

IF YOU GET STUCK, DON'T BE AFRAID TO ASK FOR HELP.