Goal Setting for Kids

Do you set goals for yourself? Lose 20 pounds? Read more? Stay on top of paperwork all year long? It all sounds great day one but then gets overwhelming quickly when perhaps you do not make as much progress as you thought and you give up. Sometimes children do the same thing. They might have to complete a huge assignment or learn a higher level motor skill and day after day when they do not meet the goal they feel defeated. Have you ever considered changing it up and trying easier goal setting for kids or yourself?

Just Right Challenges

Pediatric physical or occupational therapists sometimes refer to smaller, mini, goals as “just right challenges”. These are activities or goals that you can set to challenge the student just above their current level to encourage the intrinsic motivation to keep on trying to improve.

Smaller mini goals may help your student to feel motivated to continue making progress towards the larger goal.

Here is a simple example of a just right challenge. You have a student who is learning how to play basketball. They want to learn how to shoot a free throw. Day after day they try but still no success and they are ready to give up. One day, the student moves forward from the foul line a few feet and makes the free throw! They continue to practice a few feet closer and improve their accuracy. Slowly each day they move a few inches away from the hoop and they continue to make the shot. By simply changing the distance, the student continued to have the drive to learn how to shoot free throws.

What Does the Research Say on Goal Setting for Kids with Disabilities?

When it comes to performance of a specific skill, research has consistently indicated that setting performance, specific, realistic, challenging, and difficult goals does have a more beneficial effect than setting no goals, routine goals, easy goals, or “do your best” goals. But what about goal setting for kids with intellectual disabilities?

A recent study took a closer look at investigated the effects of easy goals versus difficult goals on acquisition and retention of basketball free throws in children with intellectual disability. The study included 21 children with intellectual disability were randomly assigned to an easy goals or difficult goals group to improve their basketball free throws based on their own scores.

The children in the more difficult goals group had more difficult goals than the easy goals group. Following nine exercise sessions, the results indicated that the participants with easy goals improved their performance while the participants with difficult goals failed to improve their performance.

The researchers concluded that for children with intellectual disability using easy goals facilitates the process of sport skill learning.

Reference: Mohammadi, M., Borujeni, M. R., Movahedi, A., & Salehi, H. (2020). The effects of easy goals versus difficult goals on acquisition and retention of a sport skill in children with intellectual disability. Journal of Intellectual Disabilities, 1744629520970076.

How Can You Help with Goal Setting for Kids?

Students can be empowered by learning how to set and achieve goals. This goal setting for students PDF uses the STAR method to help students identify what is important to them to begin setting and reaching educational and personal goals.

This Positive Goal Setting packet can help students (and adults) to reach their goals by using positive self talk.

What Does the Goal Setting for Students PDF Include?

This set of worksheets help students to set and achieve goals by going through the 4 step STAR process and includes:

Poster of the STAR process from the Goal Setting for Students PDF

S – Set a goal

T – Think about a plan to reach your goal

A – Action – Act and follow through on your plan

R – Review how the plan went, revise the plan, rate your actions and retry if you do not reach your goal.

Poster: What Can I Learn From Setting Goals? – 8 reasons to learn how to set goals

My Goal Vision Board – help students decide on their goals

My Goal is Important to Me – students write why the goal is important to them, their purpose!

I Can Think of a Plan – list out materials and steps in any order

I Take Steps to Reach My Goal – list the plan in the correct order

I Can Make a Prediction – how well does the student know their own abilities

I Can Take Action – create a checklist to initiate and carry out the steps to reach the goal

I Can Review – write problems that occurred and possible solutions

I Can Rate Myself – how well did the student do: compare to the prediction to determine how realistic the plan was

I Can Rate Myself Every Time – take self-generated data to track progress

I Can Revise – use this form from the goal setting for students PDF to encourage flexibility and perseverance to try again with new ideas

I Reached My Goal – poster to celebrate success!

What Skills Do Students Learn from Completing the the Goal Setting for Students PDF – Reach for the Stars?

  • Planning skills
  • Organizational skills
  • Initiation
  • Task monitoring
  • Self monitoring
  • Self confidence
  • Decision making skills
  • Independence

Teach your students how to reach their goals with this Goal Setting for Students PDF – Reach for the Stars!

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