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“Staircase” technique. How to set an attainable goal

Now we will move on to discussing quick results and attainable goals.

At this stage it does not matter at all what kind of learner you or your child is. The most important thing is to set attainable goals for your child which they can understand.

Essentially, the learning process in the eyes of a child is like an endless staircase, leading to an unknown place. The result of learning lies in a horizonless future and cannot be seen.

You tell them, “Study hard, sweetie! Then you’ll get into a prestigious university, get a high-paying job, and everything in your life will be just great!”

These words are white noise to a child. They cannot see past one or two steps of the learning staircase, let alone the fifth, sixth, or further steps.

Children like to get fast results. Subconsciously, your child will not take far-off goals seriously. While you are drawing out a happy future for your child, their brain will simply not take it in. These goals will be like white noise for them.

The subconscious of an adult works in a similar way. Do you remember which plans you set for yourself a few years ago? Have you reached them all? Learn a language to a conversational level, exercise regularly, lead a healthy lifestyle, visit all the countries of Europe…

There are goals which are not quickly reached for a number of reasons. Slowly, they begin to turn into dreams, unfulfillable desires, thoughts of which no longer cause you to feel any emotions.

For this very reason, it is very important to set goals for your child which they can achieve in the near future so they will not turn into unfulfillable dreams.

How is this done? We will make a checklist of how attainable the goal is:

The goal should be close and tangible for the child

It is important to mark the achievement of goals in learning, i.e., another step in the staircase of learning (your child finished another year at school, did homework on their own, woke up without an alarm clock, got three A’s in school, etc.)

Encouragement. Reaching the next step of the academic ladder, (and not only) should give your child positive emotions. Imagine monotonously climbing a long staircase, you would very quickly become tired and stop enjoying the process, just like your child. However, if they find a small “prize” at each new step, then climbing becomes that much easier. There should be emotional “goodies”: kindness, extended praise, going somewhere your child has long wanted to go (the movies, water park, circus, children events), etc.

This will be motivation to move forward.

Praise can come in different forms. You could find the negative in everything and say things like, “If you want it, you can do it!” or “Couldn’t you have done that earlier? You must have been too lazy!”

This is similar to if someone said to you after you had climbed up a long staircase, “Why did you sit on the step? Couldn’t you have gone up more?” I assume you would not like it very much. It is hardly going to help you achieve your goal.

It is better to tell your child something like:

“Good job! I am proud of you, you finished your lesson in twenty minutes and freed up your evening!”

“Well done! Come here, I want to give you a hug!”

“Thank you for putting your dirty underwear in the washing machine and for picking them up yourself instead of throwing them about.”

Compliment your child for their accomplishments and for each step towards independence. Otherwise, they might not notice it themselves. It is important that you notice it and encourage your child. That way, next time they will consciously clean up after themselves, do their lesson more quickly, get their backpack ready on their own, and so on.

“I’m proud of you!”, “You did a great job!”, “I’m really happy”, these phrases truly help goals be reached.

Of course, we should remember fast results.

“Learn well and someday you will be successful” is not a good method.

“Learn now and tomorrow you will already be able to use this and see results” works much better.

The next stage is to motivate your child to learn certain subjects.

Nowadays not every class is told when or why certain school subjects might be needed. That is why it is important for you to do so. Have you and your child find the advantages of learning the subjects and what value your child will get when they apply this new knowledge. In this way they will start to understand why they are doing it. This helps reach attainable goals, for example, doing homework on their own.

It is not uncommon for someone to want their son or daughter to reach a specific goal, without realizing that it is in fact their own goal and not their child’s. For example, wanting them to get up easily in the mornings for school.

I will give an example from one of our students, Tatiana. She talks about how it bothered her that her child could not wake up in the mornings on time.

“My daughter doesn’t want to get out of bed at all! I have to go to her half an hour early, nag her for five minutes to get up, to get dressed. This happens no matter when she goes to bed. We argue every time. I get worried and tell her that she’ll sleep through her entire life and all the important events!” says Tatiana.

In other words, she set goals for her daughter which were very far from her.

After discussing the main principles of goal setting, Tatiana changed her tactic. She broke up her goal (of her child waking up to the alarm clock and getting ready for school on her own) into shorter, easily attainable steps for her and her daughter.

The first step was to get up in the morning from the very beginning. Look at how the goal transformed from “always and immediately” to “one time tomorrow”.

Tatiana then did the following: she bought a lot of small trinkets and sweets ahead of time. When she went to wake up her daughter the next morning she told her, “If you get out of bed right now, you will find a surprise which I’ve prepared for you! I won’t tell you what it is, you should find it yourself.”

Her daughter understood that if she got up right away, made the next step, then she would get a surprise. Her daughter liked it, “Mom, will you wake me up the same way tomorrow?”

They played this game together for a while.

The next goal Tatiana set for herself was for her daughter to get up in the mornings on her own, without having to go to her and wake her up. They agreed that a surprise would be waiting if she woke up to her alarm clock on her own. After two weeks, her daughter learned to do this.

Next, the mother changed her system of encouragement. For the prize, she offed walks together or an event her daughter wanted to attend. They made their way like this to their bigger goal, with small steps which were tangible for her child.

Any goal should be gone after in a similar fashion. Break it down into steps and take your time making them, getting satisfaction from each step. After all, an endless tiring journey with an unknown end is unlikely to lead anywhere.

What you can do to help your child learn

– Set attainable goals which are tangible for your child.

– Break goals down into steps in order to accomplish them. Visualize a “staircase”.

– Use constructive praise and track progress.