Making a New Year's resolution, whether you're a parent or anybody else, involves the same psychologies of change. The same principles that you need to change human behavior. Now, whether that resolution is, "I'm going to yell less at my kids. I'm going to read more to my kids. I'm going to exercise more so that I can be around longer for my kids." The principles of making a change in your behavior are the same. Here are the rules. First of all, make it something that's actually achievable. You can't say, "I'm going to write my first novel this year" if you don't own a computer. You can't say "I'm going to lose 40 lbs in 2 weeks" because that's unrealistic. Make a realistic goal and circle some people around you. Whether you post it on your Facebook page and have your digital friends supporting you. Whether you have who's going to go to that yoga class with you or help congratulate you when you go a whole day without yelling at your kids. And by the way, we all yell at our kids sometimes. But having some social support is very, very important. And the most important thing is rewarding yourself along the way. Don't wait until you've lost 30 lbs to get a reward. You're not going to get any goodies along the way. If it gets to be Friday and you thought to yourself, "Wow, I read to my daughter every night for the last 4 days." Well that's the time to treat yourself, whether it's to a long, lingering bath or whether it's a trip to Barnes & Noble to buy a good book yourself. Figure out what the rewards are ahead of time and implement them in regular intervals so that you can feel good as change your behavior for life.