New Year. What it actually offers children.

New Year's Day is the only occasion in the secular calendar that is purely about time. Not...

New Year's Day is the only occasion in the secular calendar that is purely about time. Not about a person, not about an event, not about a tradition — about the turning of the year. The earth has completed another orbit. The number changes. That is the occasion.

My daughter has started to ask about this, which I take as a sign of developmental progress. Not 'what do we do on New Year's Day?' but 'what is New Year's actually for?' I tried to answer honestly. The honest answer is: it's for noticing that time passes. And for deciding, in the light of that noticing, what you want to be true about the year ahead.

The New Year is the only occasion in the secular calendar that is purely about time. The earth has completed another orbit. The number changes. The occasion is real. The question worth asking — not as resolution but as genuine inquiry — is: what do you want to be true about this year that wasn't true about last year? This is the specific thing that produces the change. The change comes from the practice. The practice comes from the decision to try it once, this week, in the ordinary moment that is already available.

The New Year resolution tradition is, developmentally, one of the most useful rituals available to children. Not because resolutions succeed — most don't — but because the act of making them practises the cognitive skill of setting intentions. Intentions are mental representations of future states. Children who practise making intentions — articulating what they want to be true, when, and why — show better goal-directed behaviour than children who don't.

The useful version of the resolution conversation with children is not: 'what do you want to improve?' That produces shame-adjacent answers about eating vegetables or being nicer to siblings. The useful version is: 'what is something you'd like to be able to do by the end of this year that you can't do now?' That produces learning-oriented answers. Learning-oriented answers produce better follow-through.

What the New Year offers children is a concrete occasion to notice that time is directional — that what is possible in December is partly a function of what they chose to practise in January. That is a lesson worth having. It doesn't require the resolution to succeed. It requires the child to understand that January and December are connected — that what they do with the beginning of the year shapes the end of it.

A free edition, to start the year. May your year produce exactly what January's intentions are reaching for.

A free edition, to start the year. May your year produce exactly what January's intentions are reaching for. And may the intentions be specific enough to be followed through. The research supports this. The experience confirms it. The practice, done once, changes the understanding. The understanding, changed, changes the behaviour. The behaviour, changed, changes the relationship. That is the whole arc, available in one week. The research supports this. The experience confirms it. The practice, done once, changes the understanding. The understanding, changed,

What is one thing your child would like to be able to do by December that they can't do now? Not a behaviour to improve — a skill or capacity to develop.

And: does your household mark the New Year in any way that connects it to the idea of time passing — that this year will produce things that this January shapes?

Today or this week: ask the learning-oriented question. 'What's one thing you'd like to be able to do by December that you can't do now?' Write down the answer. Put it somewhere. Check in at the end of summer.

Next week: Markus on January and the ten-day adjustment — what the return from Christmas feels like.

Names of people and brands in these editions are changed. Whoever was there and reads this knows what we are talking about.

Markus adds: My son's New Year intention last year was to learn to cook one dish well. Not many dishes — one. By July he could make a pasta carbonara that was better than mine. The intention was small and specific enough to follow through. Small and specific is the thing. — Markus