Goals are Meant to be Held Lightly...

(a just because pic.  My birthday boy.)

Well, at least when it comes to goals we set for our children...

Why?  Their development and life's circumstances are simply unpredictable.  I'm always so tempted to have very lofty goals for both myself and my children.  It is one thing to set them for myself.  It is always amazing what I can push myself to do if a goal is set before me.

When it comes to our children though, this can have very unpleasant if not disastrous effects.  I've seen it taken to extremes and sadly experienced bits of it myself.  There is so much going on in their little brains and especially when it comes to things that are developmental and academic need to proceed with caution.

Requiring something of our children that their brains simply aren't wired for yet is unfair to do.  As such, when I'm setting goals, I've learned to be careful to take into account normal ranges of development and then be ready to hold my goals lightly and take each children on an individual basis.

So when a good friend asked me a couple of weeks ago how I did on meeting my goals for last semester after I shared my goal sheet with you all, my face brightened when I told her about goals we had met and how exciting it was to see growth.  While several goals weren't met, I felt very comfortable with our semester.

There are a variety of reasons why we don't always meet our goals.  Sometimes the timing just isn't right.  One of my spiritual goals for Xander was to discuss the importance of communion with him.  He joins us for singing and the message on the last Sunday of the month.  I feel that it is important that he see how the body as a whole worships each Sunday instead of simply going to a Sunday School class all the time.  I assumed that he would start asking questions or showing an interest in communion since we take part each Sunday.  But he didn't.  Since he didn't show an interest and due to his young age, I chose to drop this goal.  Communion is something that is a bit abstract and I don't see any benefit to rushing this too early.  I want to wait until there is interest that will drive his desire to understand and seek to participate in this special time.

With other goals, we saw definite growth, but by no means 'arrival'.  Character goals tend to line up here.  While our overall goal this past semester was to grow in obedience, I'll be the first to tell you that they have NOT mastered that one by any means.  Was there growth?  Yes.  Probably most importantly, it helped me stay focused on that aspect of their training and patiently having that expectation with them.  Obedience is a central character goal that will be staying on my two younger boys goals for character development this fall.

Life situations also lead to the tweaking of goals.  We ran into problems with one of our children lying a lot.  So of course, this took center stage as something that we intentionally worked with him on.

With academic goals, I also try and make them open-ended during these younger years.  Instead of saying that I wanted my oldest to progress to reading __ kind of chapter book by the end of the semester or progress to ___ point in our spelling/phonics program, my academic goal for him was to focus on reading.  I knew that he was at the age where the wiring is usually falling into place for this to easily happen and I kept it open-ended.  It was our special focus.  So if there were exceptionally busy days or days when some of the family was sick, and we could only cover math or phonics for the day, we chose phonics.

Now chores...  :happy sigh:  Having specific goals this last semester was so incredibly helpful.  While they don't do it perfectly, I'm pleased as punch that my kids now know how to separate laundry and fold/put away/hang up all of their clean clothes.  With a fourth little person due to add her laundry to the pile, I'm ever so thankful that I have efficient little helpers!

So what are our goals for this semester?  Well here are a few of them...

Spiritual: fairly consistent across the board.  When I prayed about this one, "Daily Bread" is what kept coming to mind.  We are working at incorporating short Bible readings into our daily meals.  So far, we've been most consistent with this at lunch.  (I'm sure pregnancy hormones are coming into play here since I have a serious NEED to be in the Word halfway through the day.)  Our simultaneous goal for the semester is to have a 30 minute window set aside for time in the Word and prayer.  The two older boys are very excited about having their personal time with God and we'll just have to see how the 3.5 year old takes to it.  I guess if nothing else, he'll get 30 minutes of quiet room time. :)  And since waking up before the rest of the house to spend time with the Lord won't be feasible this semester as we go into newborn/mommy survival mode, I'm hoping this will give me some focused time as well.  (Then again, I'm holding everything lightly since I have no idea about my little girls needs or personality, how I'll react to moving to four children or how much 'training' my 3.5 year old will need with learning how to play or read his little Bible 'quietly' w/out setting out to distract his brothers.)

Chores: Teach Xander how to make oatmeal so that he can help with breakfast prep several days a week.  Keegan will focus on emptying the dishwasher daily and Trey will help with silverware.  I also need to help Trey to become more helpful and consistent during clean-up times.  (hahaha, he's not the baby anymore and his days of getting away with things are over.)

Academic/Physical: After re-reading so much on brain development over the last 6 months and the importance of movement I want to incorporate a lot of skipping, hopping, galloping and other gross motor activities into our lives.  With a new baby, I'm sure there will be plenty of energy that will need outlets.  And all of that tumbling, climbing and playing does so much to wire their brains to learn.  My goal for the two younger boys is to encourage this as well as LOTS of read-aloud time.  Fostering those important brain connections that wire the brain to learn and building vocabulary are the two biggest things one can do in the early years to prepare little one's to learn.  I have a whole list of ideas on ways to do this in my Reading-Readiness Activities handout that is also linked up top in my Cultivated Learning page. 

Keegan has pretty much met most of my expectations of what I want him to cover in kindergarten in a huge spurt of growth this summer, so I'm planning on just following his lead on phonics/math for the rest of the year.  He's pretty driven and wants to keep up with Xander, so I'm very comfortable going with whatever pace he decides to set.  For Xander, my goal is routine with him.  With being 7 now, aside from the time we take off after the baby, I'm working on getting him into a steady routine with his core subjects (reading/spelling/math) and a more formal routine for the day.

Well that's just a peak.  I know that this semester even more than any other's that I'll need to hold everything lightly and continue to pray and seek the Lord as we proceed. 

I'll sign off for now since I promised my husband that I'd be good and go lay down again...  It has been a day full of contractions and laying down usually calms those down.  A trip downtown to the Children's Museum with 116 degree weather proved to be a bit much, I guess...  With the due date just a month from now, we are all getting excited to meet this little girl!