This year we tried something new for Little Man, adopted from an idea suggested by bro Aziz in our podcast .
Define his Ramadan goals, make this DIY tracking sheet together, and paste it up a wall in a very visible location he passes by all the time. Every time he meets a goal, he gets to put up a sticker of his choice. For every row he gets a 10, he gets a present.
What this exercise also thought us is to improve our goal-setting and defining our targets. For instance, we realized that we over-estimated our boy’s ability for fasting. 5-year olds get HANGRY, man. After 4-5 hours, we start to witness some very visible behavior changes. Time to readjust the goals.
Overall, the results were very encouraging, masha Allah, especially for solat, reciting morning+evening Zikir, as well as reciting/memorizing Qur'an. Things 5-year olds do for toys 😆
When progress tracking is visible and rewards are tangible, it creates a self-motivating mechanism to push ourselves to do more. We are thinking of ways to adopt this approach for long-term goals, beyond Ramadan.
Any ideas and suggestions? Would love to hear your success stories 😊
