Top 5 New Year’s Resolutions to Build Family Success

The New Year begins with a blank slate on which we  can set new goals and challenges to make the coming year even better than the last. As a family coach and learning specialist I always think about building family relations and student success.With the onset of free time granted by Winter School Break take advantage, set up new spaces, organize materials, and challenge yourselves to something new.

1. Purchase a new monthly family calendar and hang it where it is most visible to all, probably in the kitchen. Record everyone’s activities, appointments and special events. Use a different color for each family member, and attach the colorful pens to the calendar.
2. Set up individual work spaces for students, a place where they can keep their homework tool box and be assured it won’t be disturbed.
3. Set at least one night per week as family dinner night. Mark it on the calendar to avoid conflicts. This is a time to share. Need some topics to discuss? Try giving each person a chance to share their peeks and valleys of the week. Have everyone bring a news event they want to share with the family or a new book they’ve read.
4. Create family chores that can be rotated from week to week. Need some suggestions?  Dinner set-up and clean-up, plant care, pet care, trash and recycle cans to street and returned.
5. Challenge yourselves intellectually, physically, spiritually, academically. Reach out, try something new.  This success is measured by your effort to try, not by mastery. Read something new, learn to bake, sew, knit, skateboard, ride a two wheeler, swim, attend a meditation seminar or yoga retreat. The options are bound only by your willingness to explore.

My best to all my readers

for a safe, healthy, happy and successful New Year.