Encourage your children to plan their lives

Although it's never too late to create a plan for life, it is best to do it while you are young. You can then spend all of your productive life achieving your plan.

Unfortunately, children or young adults are not likely to think about creating life goals by themselves. They do not think about where they are going or what they want to accomplish. Even children who have to select a major course of study in high school or college may not base their decision on their needs for the future. They tend to select programs based upon peer pressure, and they may choose courses that their friends are taking. They are not trained to evaluate their own abilities, skills, background, and desires.

This lack of planning affects their entire life. At a later stage, your children are likely to know what they want. However, by then it may be too late. They may have studied the wrong subject, married the wrong woman, lived in the wrong city, and made any number of other mistakes. They may regret their decisions, after it is too late to correct them.

You do want your child to make the right decisions and to avoid mistakes. If he is willing to listen, then you can help him develop a plan for life. That plan will help him understand where he is going. He will know what he needs to accomplish in order to succeed. As a result, he will be able to make wise and informed decisions.

Granted, the intricacies of life may not allow the entire plan to come to fruition. People and circumstances change. However, if your child has a direction in life, then he will have an intelligent mechanism for making important decisions.

How much planning is involved?

In some cases, a parent may be able to work with a knowledgeable and thinking child and develop a full working document with minimal effort. In other cases it may be necessary to work through the process step by step. You may have to learn the procedure by planning the next day, then the next week, the next month, the next year, the next five years, and the next decade. By that point, you will be able to help your child plan his entire life.