Helping Our Kids Reflect in the New Year

By Ashley Pagenkopf, MS, CCLS, Child Life Specialist at Cook Children's

The start of a new year provides a great opportunity for self-reflection and New Year’s resolutions. While adults all over the world are reflecting and hoping to improve certain areas of their lives, this is a great time to connect with our kids and help them to look back on things that were hard or amazing and look ahead to the things they hope for. 

While setting New Year’s resolutions may be a high expectation for our kids, we can certainly help them look at their life currently and reflect on their thoughts and desires for the future. Self-reflection and self-awareness are such important practices for our children to learn to be able to grow and change. Asking a couple of questions about where they are and where they would like to be can help to set the stage for kids to grow. Even preschoolers can reflect on things they love and things they wish they could do better. 

It’s great to ask questions. Doing this alongside your children gives you a chance to share your own reflections with them, further developing your relationship. Having these conversations and documenting your children’s responses also provides an opportunity to touch base throughout the year and take inventory of how things are going. 

For younger kids, you could ask just two questions: 

• What is one thing that is hard for you that you wish you could do better?
• Who is one person that you would like to get to know more (or spend more time with)?

For older kids, you could ask them to look at things a little more in-depth: 

• Friendship – Who is one friend that you are glad to have in your life? Who is someone you would like to spend more time with? How can you be a good friend to them? 
• School – What do you love about school? What is one thing you wish was could be different at school? What is one thing you would like to improve in at school? 
• Home – What is your favorite thing about our family? Is there something you wish looked different at home? What is one thing that you would like to improve on at home (chores, tidiness, sleep, etc.)? 
• Hobbies – What is one thing you love doing? What is one new thing you would like to try? 
• Health – What is your favorite activity or sport to do? What is one way that you could choose to be healthier this year? 

Asking questions that allow your children to reflect on one thing they are grateful for now and one thing they want to change is a good format for self-reflection and self-awareness. Allow your children to come up with their own answers. As parents, we always have our own ideas of what we hope can improve for our kids. Sometimes we wish they read more, cleaned up their room more frequently or made their beds every day. This is not an opportunity for you to share what you hope they improve on. However, your child may need some guidance when answering the questions. Your positive reflections of their life and character will always be encouraging. So you could help them by saying, “I see you being a good friend when you _____. “ Or “I know you’ve said you wished you could _____.” These are great positive prompts to help your children learn to be self-reflective. 

I cannot ignore that some pre-teens and teens may roll their eyes at an activity like this. I encourage parents and caregivers to use this as an opportunity to connect. Take your kiddo to lunch or set up a picnic. Do something a little out of the ordinary to help them have a positive experience with this self-reflection. I would not encourage having this conversation at bedtime.

Finding ways to remind one another of these reflections and desires can be helpful. For younger kids, that may look like hanging a poster in their room to remind them of their answers and focus for the coming year. For older kids, it may be a journal or a piece of paper they can have readily available to look back on. 

New years are not a magical reset – it takes some kind of intentional reflection. New years provide a space for new beginnings and can be a beautiful opportunity to reset and connect with ourselves and others. I encourage you to use this new year to connect with your kids and provide a space for open dialogue that helps them reflect on themselves and their place in this world. The hope is that they can see what brings them joy and help to bring others joy as they grow!