Learning a New Skill by Setting Perseverance Goals

Learning a new skill by setting perseverance goals is our next lesson in my character building education series. As we are working on building character, setting personal goals is an important skill to teach kids.

When setting perseverance goals, we want to teach kids to make their objectives challenging, measurable and attainable.

Character Building Education Series

You have found my character building series that is filled to the brim with lessons, activities, literature and crafts that support 52 different character traits, one for each week of the year.

This is our week to work on perseverance. If you visit this tab, you will find the supporting lessons for the entire week. This is lesson one.

You could work on character with your kids, grandkids or students every single day of the year by following my character building education series.

Now on to my lesson about learning a new skill by setting perseverance goals.

Learning a New Skill by Setting Perseverance Goals

Subject: Perseverance

Objective: Kids will learn to set and work on personal goals about perseverance.

Perseverance Bible Verse

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.” 1 Corinthians 9:24 NIV

As always, work on this scripture about perseverance every single day.

Time to set personal goals. Remind kids that when setting goals they want something challenging, measurable and achievable. It’s also good to set a time period.

If you are following along with this character building education series completely, you did lesson one in perseverance already. This should be lesson two. Therefore, they could set their goal for the next 5 days and work to achieve it within that time.

Ask kids:

What is one goal you want to make that would take perseverance to achieve?
What are the steps needed to achieve your goal?

Here are some categories for goals kids could focus on:

Athletic goals – shots, skills, accomplishing something a certain amount of times in a row, reaching a certain speed, amount of weight lifted, number of sit-ups done, how long to hold a plank, etc.
Musical goals – play a certain song, learn certain chords, hit certain notes, learn a new rhythm
Performance goals – learn a certain monologue, sing a solo, learn a dance routine, master a drawing skill
Academic goals – achieve certain grades, learn math facts, learn letters and/or sounds, read a certain book, understand a new concept, build a certain engineered model
Personal goals – tie shoes, keep room clean, only kind words, eliminating candy consumption, exercising a certain number of times a week
Spiritual goals – read a certain book of the Bible, memorize a passage of scripture, be in the Word every day.

Have kids pick a goal within their age range and ability level. It’s not fair to push them beyond their development level, and it will only lead to frustration and tension in your relationship. Read this post to learn more about that.

Make sure you are a voice of encouragement and learn to describe things in different ways as you are teaching new skills.

Here is what we did:

Kenzie – Learning to Lace Shoes

With Kenzie she decided to try lacing shoes because she hadn’t done it before. It took a bit of hand-eye coordination, but with a bit of perseverance, she was able to get there.

After she had mastered the lacing, she wanted to try tying bows. I felt like it was too hard for a 3 year old, but I wanted to let her try.

She did quickly become frustrated with the process, and I had to explain that Abby (at age 5) just learned to tie her shoes. I had to tell her that it’s really hard and that we should just try again another day.

I would let her keep trying if she had wanted, but like I said in the intro, I didn’t want her to be frustrated and discouraged by something that seemed to be beyond where she is developmentally.

Abby – Learning to Draw a Bird

Abby wanted to draw a bird for a necklace design she is creating for Kidz Can Design, a website where you can send in your child’s artwork and they will make a sterling silver pendant of that artwork. I’ll be sharing more about that and doing a Giveaway soon.

Today, Abby had to learn perseverance while she was learning to draw a bird. I can tell you that it wasn’t picture perfect the whole time. She became frustrated.

She had chosen a bird but said she didn’t know how to draw it. I said we could look at some bird drawings online. She found one she wanted to try and copy. The first attempt resulted in tears (and she tends to come with drama, so when I say tears, I mean TEARS) and a crumpled up piece of paper.

I sent her to the stairs to get a happy heart and get under control. I seriously was not convinced we would recover. She was obviously exhausted and not handling life well.

I was ready to let it go and try again another day. However, she came out with self control and a desire to have perseverance.

I gave her some drawing tips by showing her that a drawing is always made up of shapes. I showed her how there were circles, triangles and tear drop shapes within the drawing and tried to break it down for her.

We talked about the importance of perseverance. I reminded her that she wasn’t able to ride a bike, her scooter or even walk the first time she tried. Everything takes the 3 P’s. She need to persevere through her frustration.

I acknowledged that it can be disappointing and frustrating when we can’t do something right away, but how it doesn’t help to give up. If she gave up, she’d never know how to draw a bird.

The next bird was a lot better. The next one was even better. Her fourth attempt was the chosen one. You saw her countenance changing, and you could see how good she felt that she was able to persevere and get it.

After it was all said and done, I got down to her level, looked in her eyes and said, “Abby, I’m so proud of you for getting self control and deciding to try again. What a great accomplishment. Now you can draw a bird.”