(2 minute read)
Ok. The holidays are over. Real life is settling in. Back to work and personal goals.
You made a resolution to say, lose some weight. Or exercise daily. Or organize that messy closet. (I know I’m not alone in these goals đŸ˜‰ …) Whatever the goal is, the ingredients for success are still the same.
A few weeks back, we said that there are five important ingredients.
Here’s ingredient #2: Skills.
We need to have the tools and the know-how to make the actual change.
If you have a goal for a child or student, make sure you teach the child all the necessary skills to be successful. If a child is disorganized, yelling at him to “stop being such a slob!” doesn’t quite teach him how to be orderly. Instead, the child likely needs a detailed breakdown of all the reds and greens of organized and disorganized behavior.
What happens when Skills are lacking? It results in Anxiety! As in, “I want to do it right but I just can’t figure it out!” That’s a child feeling anxious about meeting the expectations. Perhaps the child recognizes that his messiness is causing him problems and he really wants to fix it, but he doesn’t know how to go about it, yet.
Therefore, break down the goals that you’re trying to teach into itty bitty steps so that the child can learn the steps and succeed. Then, use the RGBT 6-step process (Label, Picture, Model, etc.) until the skills are mastered.Here is a sample list of Cubby Organization skills that are broken down into bite-size behaviors. I’d like to thank Gesher Yehuda’s 8th grade graduating class of 2014 as they helped me create this list.
Have an awesome week!
Yours,
Dr. Devora