ABSTRACT
The higher the level of achievement your children aim for, the more crucial it becomes that their goals are well-defined. Developing their abilities means being able to clearly communicate, “This is the goal. This is how you get there.” Goals focus our attention by directing it toward activities that are relevant to the task and away from activities that are irrelevant. Goals influence persistence by their difficulty. Generally, more challenging goals increase persistence, provided that children have some control over the amount of time they have available to work on the goal. Goals also tend to energize people, thus increasing effort. This is why you must keep your expectations high for your children and help them learn how to set challenging goals for themselves.
