Health

New Year's Resolution: Be (and Find) Good Role Models for Kids

To achieve, children need help and support in the form of good role models. 

For better or worse, children model their behavior after people both inside and outside of the home.

As every year comes to a close, we not only reflect on the events that defined our time in the last 12 months, but also begin to look forward, setting our agenda for the coming year. For many, this includes defining our goals, often by setting New Year’s resolutions. As we think about those plans, we need to ensure that they are reasonable, actionable and attainable. These tenets ring true for children as well as for adults. 

It's clear that children’s health is dependent on many factors, one of the most significant being making choices that support well-being, whether that is specific symptom management, general health maintenance such as weight management, or psychological health. All are reasonable and necessary goals, but to ensure that they are attainable requires one overall theme: support. To achieve, children need help.  Perhaps, then, the best New Year’s resolution is to find role models that can show the way to success.

It has long been accepted that much of learning is related to observation and modeling behavior. Developing a sense of other people’s feelings; learning to deal with adversity; understanding the expected social norms. Children learn these skills by watching and experimenting. Making sure the right template is in front of them is a challenging part of parenting.

For all children, the parent as role model cannot be underestimated.  Especially with younger children, the primary nuclear family members comprise the vast majority of their universe. When parents treat others, including their children, with respect and kindness; converse routinely about everyone’s day; and show love for the significant others in their lives, the effects on young kids are monumental and can last forever.

Positive displays of the morals and ethics that a family has embedded into their values system can allow children to imprint and adopt these desired behaviors. Take the concept of service for example. In households where one caregiver volunteers to a community organization, youth in that same family are twice as likely to participate in service. Approximately three-fourths of kids who do service volunteerism report doing so through religious, school or a youth organization – places led by adults who value and participate in service. The result? Approximately 55 percent of the total youth population in America participates in community service with only 5 percent reporting it as a school requirement. If you add that up, the sum total is 1.3 billion hours of service activity annually by people ages 18 or younger. 

As children get a bit older, the circle widens and the choice of people to emulate increases, almost to a staggering number. Although we may think teens don’t always crave adult influence in their lives, 56 percent report self-identifying with role models. And that same subset also reports higher levels of self-esteem and academic success. 

More adolescents identify with people who live outside of their home than younger children. This may include close family friends, religious leaders, coaches and teachers. How to pick someone to look up to can get more complicated for teens, especially in a society that loves the famous, in particular, professional athletes. Helping children identify specifically the qualities they admire in people who inspire them may help inform their choice. Talking openly with them about the people  their family and society respect may assist them in culling through the vast choices.

In addition, talking about negative role models also serves an important purpose: Seeing the type of person we do not want to be can be life-defining. We can point out those who embrace the opposite of our goals and the expectations we set for our children, like those who court violence, sexism, racism and substance abuse. It also allows for the beginning of conversation about good people who make bad choices – and how one can recover his or her integrity after a fall from grace. Citing the good and the bad can give an overall understanding of the people we aspire to be in life.