One in five (19%) parents of children under the age of 18 will be encouraging them to make a New Year’s resolution.
Moms (23%) are more likely to want to steer their children towards making a resolution than their dads (15%) and much more likely than the men to hope for a resolution to improve behavior at home (21% women, 13% men).
Overall nearly a third of parents want their children to resolve to read more books (31%) and a quarter want to improve school grades (26%). Although 14% would like their children to commit to spending less of their time on cellphones and other devices, only 4% wish their children would resolve to spend less time on social media.
Aspirations - however optimistic - for children’s 2015 resolutions vary with age and gender. Parents hope their 6-11 year olds will read more (35%), improve their behavior at home (21%) and get better grades (19%). They also hope that their younger ones will resolve to get more active outside of school. As graduation looms for the 12-17 year olds, nearly a third of parents are hoping their child’s resolution will be to up their grades. 28% also want them to resolve to read more books and nearly a quarter (24%) wish they would learn to save more money.
Although parents of both boys and girls rate reading and improved grades as the resolutions they most wish their children would commit to, parents of boys seem more inclined to want them to read more (34% for boys, 28% for girls), and improve their grades (29% for boys, 22% for girls). They are also more inclined to want boys to save money and participate in more outside their school activities.
Parents of girls (12%) are more likely to want them to resolve to lose weight and shape up than parents of boys (7%).
Parents' Preferred New Year's Resolutions for Their Children
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