Let's face it. As parents, we fret over just about every stage of development that our children go through. We worry about them learning to ride a bike when they're young. We worry about them doing well in school. We worry about them getting into a good college. We worry about them achieving their dreams and living a life that is happy and fulfilling.

In the midst of all that worry, we sometimes overlook giving them valuable skills that can serve them for a lifetime, skills that can help them achieve the things that we worry about them achieving. One of those skills is goal setting. The teenage years are the perfect time to begin teaching your child the value of setting goals, how to set goals that make sense, and how to create a plan for reaching them.

Do Goals Really Matter?

Whether it's a college paper due at the end of the semester that's worth half of her grade or a trip to eastern Europe that she really wants to take, understanding how to set goals can help your young adult focus on what she wants and determine what it will take to get there.

A goal can make the difference between dreaming and actually achieving a dream-and  I think most parents agree that they want their kids to chase after their dreams and achieve them if at all possible.

The act of setting a goal begins with the thinking process. It turns a dream into a possibility. Your teenager will go from "That sounds like fun," to "Hey, I think I can do that." The first simple step of voicing a goal and writing it down actually changes the mindset. It makes a goal more than an idea, it begins to form it into a plan.

Knowing how to set and accomplish goals will make your child more confident, more self-reliant, and more engaged in the opportunities that life presents to her.

Guidelines for Setting Healthy Goals

Of course, not every goal is realistic or even a good idea. That's why it's important for you to work with your teenager to teach him how to set realistic and desirable goals.

For example, let's say your teenager wants to travel cross-country in the summer before he goes off to college. If it's the summer before his senior year when he begins planning for this goal, it's realistic. It's something that he can accomplish. While the idea might make you nervous, you can see the benefits of the experience he might gain.

On the other hand, if he announces this goal during his graduation dinner, this particular goal might not make as much sense. While the goal itself might still have merit, the time frame for him to prepare isn't realistic and it's likely this goal will lead to frustration.

In other cases, a goal might not be a good goal. If your healthy son announces a desire to lose an unhealthy amount of weight, that's a goal that could be harmful and one you should not encourage.

Here are the core elements to a good goal:

It's realistic. It's something that your child can accomplish in a given timeframe with hard work and planning.

It's healthy. Any goal set by your child should not hurt him if he achieves it-not emotionally, not mentally, and not physically.

It's satisfying. A good goal will convey some deeper benefit when it's accomplished. It may help your child to advance his studies, or bring about personal growth or enhance a social skill.

If a goal meets these three criteria, the next step is to teach your child how to get from the initial point of setting the goal to the final point of achieving the goal.

Planning for Success

Goal setting without creating a plan of action is little different than daydreaming. It's the process of developing a concrete plan for getting from point A to point B that makes goal setting a useful skill.

The steps to creating a plan are actually pretty simple.

Step 1: Have your teenager make a list of all the steps he needs to accomplish in order to reach his goal. If he plans to drive cross-country during the summer, his list may include items like planning a route, saving a set amount of money for expenses, tuning up his car, and finding two or three friends to travel with him.

Step 2: Have your teenager create a timeline for each major task. If the summer is nine months away, your teenager might plan the initial route in the first month and then spend some time in each subsequent month researching sections of the route for accommodations and attractions. Likewise he might set a monthly savings goal to make financing the trip a little easier.

Step 3: Have your teenager review the timeline for each major task at the beginning of each month or week. He should schedule time to work on the tasks so that they are accomplished when they need to be, to make steady progress. Teach your child to regularly review his timeline and task list and make adjustments as needed. If he falls short one week or completes more than expected, these adjustments will help him stay on track without leaving everything to the last minute.

Step 4: Teach your teenager to reward himself along the way. For a teenager, a long-term goal can seem as though it takes a lifetime to accomplish. By scheduling in regular rewards for tasks completed, you help your teenager maintain his enthusiasm as he works toward his goal.

A Skill to Last a Lifetime

If your child knows how to set a goal and then create a plan for accomplishing it, there will be little that can stop her from achieving what she wants out of life. Now, during the teen years, is the perfect time to teach your children the usefulness of setting goals and creating a plan to work toward them.

As your teenager moves into adulthood, the knowledge of how to set and accomplish goals can help her to flourish in her work and in her play. Whether she's working toward an important promotion or creating a quilt to give as a gift, or any other project she sets her mind to, your child will know what steps to take to get it done. That will help her become an accomplished adult.

Heather Robson is a local freelance writer with a passion for healthy families. You can send her questions and comments to  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .