It’s Done in Business, Why Not With Children?

It has occurred to me that the parents I work with do not have a clear goal in mind for their child. I was doing some planning for a family I work with and asking myself what I could do to really help this family. “What am I doing that I haven’t done before?” I asked myself. I started thinking of a conversation I had the previous night with my mother and became aware that where some families may need help is so basic and so common a question that we regularly step right over it. Like many things that are simple and common, they are just as easy to overlook and live without. Many parents, like many business people, are going into a huge daunting project without a goal. I mean a really clear goal that has many specifics to it. For example, what you want for your child when he/she is an adult. Are you going for independency, normalcy, social integration, or improved behavior? What are the large and long term goals?

Every parent I meet already has goals, so I don’t mean to call people goalless. They all want what is best for their child. They all want their children to do better. They all want an easier life for themselves and their child. They all want their children to live happy, healthy, and independent lives. The only difference is, they have not committed to any one goal. They haven’t made a choice to what is most important and crucial to them. They also haven’t become clear as to what they intend to do to achieve their goals.

Just like the millionaires tell will tell middle and lower class people, we haven’t gotten clear on what it is we want. Obviously we can all make millions of dollars, the people who do it, especially today, are mostly just ordinary people. They don’t have a high IQ, they don’t have to come from a wealthy background. There are really no rules or patterns where we could logically say, “yeah, see, that’s not me.” There are teenagers becoming rich all the time through the internet, so the few rules we could claim have been shattered in the last decade.


We also have the parents out there who have been extremely successful with their child. We read about them or see them on TV. They have brought their child out of autism, completely mainstreamed their child, or their child has severe autism and no speech and is running a business while supervising staff. What do we do? We tell ourselves, “that’s not my child, my child is different and that kind of success in not available to him.”

What are we ultimately doing in this situation? We are being a victim, a giant victim. In being a victim we are looking for ANY reason to be unsuccessful. Under this equation we will find something, some reason to validate ourselves. We DECIDE to become a victim because this remains as a very effective way to not feel emotional pain. The emotional pain and guilt that comes with facing our lack of success.

Read on only if you want to do something about it! You can also do this with your mainstream children too, before posting this; I did for my two boys. I learned a lot and came away with several great ideas.

1. Answer 4 questions:
a. What is the most important and crucial thing that you want for your child or children that could summarize everything else?
b. Where do you want to see your child as an adult?
c. What are 3 to 5 specific details on each time?
d. What are 3 to 5 things you can act on right now to begin meeting your goals?

Microsoft Word Template to be printed out and filled out for this exercise