Turning Wishes Into Goals

Often our children (and we) hope that something will happen, but we never seem to form a plan to advance that hope to a goal.  As Antoine de Saint-Exupery said in the early 1900s, "A goal without a plan is just a wish."  So how do we help our children to create those plans that change their wishes to goals?  One way is to actually write the goals down and think about ways to achieve those goals.  Teachers do this in school,  asking children to set out goals at the beginning of a school year, but we often don’t think to do this as parents.  Following is a form you may use to help your child figure out a few plans.

Following are several wishes you may have or do have.  Select three (or more) of them and see of you can devise a plan to achieve them, thus turning them from wishes to goals.

1. I hope I get a good grade on this test.
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2. I hope school won’t be boring today.
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3. I hope I get to school on time.
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4. I hope I get my homework finished tonight.
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5. I hope today will be a good day.
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6. I hope I don’t get into trouble today.
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7. I hope I don’t lose anything today.
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8. I hope I remember to give the note from my teacher to my parent.
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9. I hope I can pay attention in class today.
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10. I hope: _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________