As a parent, few things in life feel more important than making sure your child is set up for a successful life. Often, though, the smaller achievements that come along the way can be overlooked, with a stronger focus on bigger, long term goals like graduation, post-secondary, and careers.

With the new year just around the corner, we want to give you some inspiration to hop on the goal-setting train. We believe in the importance of both setting up for and celebrating the small wins; as these often help lead to the bigger ones. Help your kid get set up for success in 2020 by encouraging some of these new year’s resolutions.

Pursue a passion project outside of school

Working on school projects is important, but it’s still part of the regular, day-to-day responsibilities of being a student. Encouraging your child or teen to spend time after school or on the weekends working on something they care about helps them to get into the habit of staying productive in their personal time.

It could be something like writing, journaling, or drawing a picture each day for younger children, while middle and high school-aged kids could learn an instrument or a new language or even fight for an important cause.

Increase mindfulness through meditation

Practicing meditation will equip your child with the tools to stay grounded even through the most stressful parts of their schooling, part-time jobs, or friendships. No child is too young to meditate; even preschoolers can learn to process their feelings in a healthy way through meditation. 

Meditation is a powerful tool that allows people to learn how to deal with their emotions by controlling their own mind and therefore their own life. After taking up meditation, people often report feeling like they have a longer attention span, more self-awareness, and less anxiety.

It’s so easy to get started and the benefits can be amazing. Smartphone apps like Headspace offer affordable meditation courses for both adults and children, and free meditations of different lengths are available for free on YouTube.

Eat healthier

We know, we know, if it was this simple to get kids to eat healthy, dinnertime fights over broccoli would be no more.

It’s not foolproof, but involving children in the cooking process may make them more likely to want to eat healthier food. By teaching young ones where the ingredients come from, what they do for their bodies, choosing recipes, and cooking together, children can learn a lot about the food they eat, and they’re able to feel a sense of pride and accomplishment when the final product is ready.

If that fails, consider whipping up one of these secretly healthy dessert recipes!