Life skills are capabilities and skills developed for optimistic behavior to help people effectively tackle the ever-dynamic challenges and tasks of life.
Kids need life skills because they will need to start navigating the various stages of life. The earlier these life skills are taught and developed, the more prepared they will be to adjust and perform better every day.
So, what life skills should your kids be building?
Communication
The ability to listen and convey messages clearly, either in oral or written form, is a vital life skill for kids.
Dan argues with his classmates occasionally. They feel that he does not listen to what they are saying. He keeps talking but never cares to listen to them. Many of them avoid him.
Life is two-way traffic. There is room for listening and also speaking. Effective communication will help kids build healthy relationships and resolve conflicts efficiently.
You can train your kids on how to listen and also speak. They can be taught to listen to a speaker, nod in affirmation to show that they understand the message being passed, raise their hands to ask questions, wait for the speaker to permit them to speak, and answer questions when asked.
Please encourage them to use respectful words and show courtesy when communicating.
Teamwork
The ability to carry out a task effectively with other people is another vital life skill to be developed.
Jane has always been a lone ranger. She walks straight to her seat without greeting anybody every morning. The class project involved team participation, but she could not contribute ideas. How do you help her?
An introverted child may find it challenging to build rapport with other children. As a parent, you can introduce a group activity involving family members. What about leaving the child with cousins or friends during an event or birthday party? The child can also be involved in a team sport like football or basketball.
Children learning teamwork skills can prepare them for a class project or future career that involves solving problems with partners.
Collaboration over competition
Competition has been enshrined in many schools. Healthy competition is encouraged; however, they must strike a balance between collaboration and competition. Children should be encouraged to collaborate with their siblings at home. An older child can teach the younger sibling complex topics in a subject. Similarly, students who master a concept or topic should be encouraged to teach and help others in the school.
In real life, collaboration pays. Most of the platforms enjoyed today resulted from partners’ collaborations. Google was founded in a collaboration between Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The WhatsApp platform being enjoyed today was a collaboration of the efforts of Jan Koum and Brian Acton.
The collaboration will help kids develop respect and empathy for others’ perspectives.
Curiosity
Curiosity is the strong desire to know or learn something. Please do not shout at your kids when they ask questions. Curiosity is a life skill that any child should be developing. There are several myths and unresearched assumptions in our world today. Your child needs to know the “why” of certain things.
They need to try new things, ask questions and search for answers. Curiosity is a way of making learning very engaging. Curiosity drives peak performance, and curious children tend to perform better in life.
Agility
Agility is an individual’s willingness to do things creatively and differently. It involves the ability to think differently and experiment to get new results. Every child should be adaptable to new things. However, fear of failure or punishment that comes with failing has kept children in a cage of a fixed mindset. Your kid should be taught that failure is just another side of success.
Every child should be given room to implement innovative ways of getting tasks done. The rigidity box must be broken when dealing with a new situation. The flexibility of responding to a constantly changing environment determines your child’s success in life.
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