How to Create a Five Year Plan with Your Teen

A five year plan is a list of priorities you would like to accomplish over the next several years. As well as actions you can take when you make mistakes, so that you can still meet those goals. Your five year plan is a roadmap for success.

Why should students create a five year plan?

• Setting goals drives motivation and can get your children to self-police their social media behaviors
• Creating goals helps students become more conscientious of their actions
• Have your student think about what they can do when social media obstacles arise. Students are bound to make mistakes but when they have a strategy in place, they can learn from those mistakes and move on in a way that doesn’t negatively effect their digital footprint
• Having a strategy in place allows children to have fun and shine online while still meeting their college and career goals
• Meeting goals boosts self-confidence in students

List 5 goals you want to achieve in 5 years

To get your student thinking about goals they want to set, ask them the following questions:

• What is your dream school?
• What awards would you like to receive in the next 5 years?
• Are there any extracurricular achievements you’d like to make?
• Do you want to get an internship in the next 5 years? If so, what internship?
• What are some ways you can volunteer? How much volunteering do you hope to do?

How to create a strategy for success

• Brainstorm with your student and come up with steps to achieve each goal
• Ask your kids to think of actions they can take when they make social media mistakes that might hurt their chances of accomplishing a goal
• Document your child’s answers on paper
• Post that paper in a prominent spot in the house, like your fridge
• Posting your student’s goals where they can see them on a daily basis is a great visual reminder for them
• Whenever your child makes a social media mistake, take time to review their goals and strategies with them
• Celebrate their victories with them when your teen achieves a goal

Students who set task-based goals get better grades

A recent collaborative research by Purdue University, University of California-Irvine and University of Florida showed that task-based goal setting significantly increased practice exam completion. Importantly, task-based goal setting also increased student performance in the course: Students who set task-based goals got better grades on average, and were more likely to achieve the top grades of A or A minus. These results suggest that if task-based goals are chosen appropriately, they can be used to improve educational performance and encourage students to make greater investments in their human capital.