Main Message: The focus of this month’s book by Deloris Jordan is to inspire students to find their spark — the something that they really enjoy that can help them make their dreams come true. It also helps kids explore their world and learn about their passions. We discuss how to set goals and talk to goal champions. We work to map out steps youth can take to achieve their dreams. This lesson helps students identify, observe and understand the steps to success that role models use to achieve their goals; whether they are famous, or the everyday heroes in students’ lives..

Find your Spark and set your GPS! We all have passions—sparks—things we really love to do or special talents and skills we want to develop. How do we turn our dreams into reality? Kids this month learn to set goals by setting a GPS.

• Goal

• Path

• Shifting gears or shifting paths when the plan changes

Parents can extend this month’s lesson by helping their kids define a personal goal. This can be a skill, an accomplishment or a destination. Ask your child to think of the best way to get there.

Visualize the dream or goal — what will it feel and look like?

Shrinking the change — Talk about the small steps that youth can take to lead them along the right path to achieve their goal. Planning small steps toward their goal allows them to see change, progress and accomplishment, even when achieving the ultimate goal may seem far away. We hope you will talk with your child about Salt in His Shoes. To reinforce the message at home:

1. Ask your child what would they like to improve or change?

2. How are they going to accomplish this? What is ther plan?

3. Do they need to ask for help from someone? How will they get this help?

Refer to the GPS model and help your child set a personal goal:

• Help them develop action triggers that list immediate goal steps.

• Action triggers list a time, location or resource needed to take a step toward achieving the goal.

• Action triggers help improve the chance of success by 70%.

• Action triggers should be small, achievable steps that can be measured.

Remember that success is based on failure! Help your child understand that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert! Talk about other famous people who have failed at something only to succeed. Thomas Edison tried more than 2,000 experiments before he got the light bulb to work. When a reporter asked him how it felt to fail so many times, he replied, “I didn’t fail. I just discovered two thousand ways how NOT to make a light bulb.”

Please encourage your children to experiment and try new approaches regardless of the outcome. This is how to embrace learning!

For more information on Project Cornerstone or the 41 defined Developmental Assets that help keep our kids not at-risk, visit www.projectcornerstone.org or www.search-institute.org