7 Essential Life Skills To Help Your Child Succeed
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Life skills play a significant part in your child’s growth and development. They can help your child succeed later in life. Find out the most essential life skills your child should develop and how to incorporate them in their daily routine.
Ellen Galinsky, in her book, “Mind in the Making,” effectively describes seven skills that are necessary for success in any aspect of life. This can be school, relationships or work. It is important to incorporate these skills in children from an early age to help them achieve more in life.
What are life skills?
According to Wikipedia, “Life skills are abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable humans to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of life”. “This concept is also termed as psychosocial competency.”
For children, these are essential skills for enhanced and effective growth and development. These can be incorporated in them by conscious day-to-day activities.
What are the most important life skills for children?
- Focus and Self-Control
- Perspective-Taking
- Communication
- Making Connections
- Critical Thinking
- Taking on Challenges
- Self-Directed, Engaged Learning
Necessary Life Skills
Now, since we know what are the most important life skills to be developed, let us also take a look at their brief explanations. Let us also find out how to incorporate them.
- Focus and Self-Control
At a growing age, schedules and routines play a significant part in shaping up the habits of children. Besides creating a sense of security, such orderly activities also help them focus and develop self-control. Discuss with them about how they can lead their day. Reorganise your home in a way that it becomes easier for you child to know what to do next. For example, putting shoes, clothes, personal belongings, etc. in the right place. To help them ditch the distraction-filled world around, spend time with them to do calming and slow paced activities such as reading books and solving puzzles to help increase focus.
- Perspective-Taking
Children do not learn empathy by birth, they need to be taught about how others feel. You can read them bedtime stories and talk about how the different characters feel. When in a situation, try explaining them how others feel and what can they do to make them feel better.
- Communication
Effective communication is the most important skill for making the most out of life. In children, these skills need to be developed with high-touch of personal interactions. These are vital for building healthy social-emotional skills including the capability of communicating effectively. Just talking to them everyday in a conscious way to help them learn to pick the cues can help. It is also important to listen to your child as they try to communicate very important things relating to their lives.
- Making Connections
Making connections is one of the best ways to function effectively in life as a human. Once developed in a child, this can go serving for a long way to help them ace things. One of the best ways to develop this skill is by reading to them and reminding them of things associated. Day-to-day conversations with children including such connection building talks can also help.
- Critical Thinking
There is no alternative to critical thinking and thereby, to growth. As adults we need critical thinking as a skill to do almost any challenging activity. Thus, to build skill in children, you can play open-ended games, subject them to situations which involve thinking of solutions. You can also guide them to solve their own problems with critical thinking.
- Taking on Challenges
Well, as a matter of fact, there’s no better way to learn something new without facing a challenge and resolving it. One may get discouraged at the sight of a challenge but the zeal to try harder and not give up needs to be developed from an early age. You can help your child nurture this skill by encouraging them to try harder at things they find challenging. Appreciating after a win and counselling after a loss is also important.
- Self-Directed, Engaged Learning
Children who love learning become adults who are rarely bored with life. To develop a love of learning, you can limit television-time and encourage activities like reading, playing open-ended games, etc. Modelling curiosity and zest for learning in your own life by doing activities such as visiting the library together, keeping craft supplies, and allowing for some messes at home can also be of help.
These simple tips can easily help your child develop essential life skills.