Parenthood is about imparting the best of what we know to our children. Not limited to just knowledge and education, parents also have the important task of imparting life skills to help our children as they enter adulthood!
Life skills go hand in hand with development and can help your child succeed later in life. While it's important to make sure your kids are on the right pace for academic knowledge, it is crucial to focus on more enjoyable and practical life lessons where it can't be learned in the classroom. Below, we explore real-life skills and make it as easy as possible to nurture them and incorporate them into our existing daily routine.
1. Time Management
Admit it or not, most of us find it hard to control and stay on top of our schedule due to bad time management. Most evident examples include late to work, oversleeping and procrastination. In fact, you can better manage your time with consistent practice over time. To cultivate good time management, parents can encourage your children to plan and organize their timetable by themselves and supervise them every now and then.
Start with a schedule and get them to be part of planning their schedule for the day!
2. Communication
Great communication skill allows your kids to express themselves clearly and confidently. These skills will make them feel at greater comfort in social situations, where they will find it easier to strike up conversations with peers and make new friends.
At home, parents can help children to build these skills by encouraging them to talk to you - get them to share what they’re feeling and thinking. At the same time, parents should also listen to them and remain open-minded to talking about all kinds of feelings, including anger, joy, frustration, fear and anxiety.
3. Financial Management
Like any skill, financial management can be developed and refined with practice. Teach your kids the importance of hard work and saving by letting them earn their own money. For instance, if your kid has been wanting to buy a video game, stand firm and make sure they buy it with their own allowances.
You can also offer them extra pocket money when the children help you with chores, teaching them the value of work. How about teaching them about borrowing and interest rates, it's not too early to share about good debt and bad debt too. That way, they can see how money works and how much progress they’re making toward their goal.
4. Taking on Challenges
While parents cannot entirely control the life challenges your children will face, but you can guide your children the right way to approach any problem and how you can cope with problems and failures too.
Offer an age-appropriate challenge for your child, it could be riding a bicycle or trying to complete a few tasks by herself. While it is tempting to step in, try not to. Instead, educate them that no one is perfect, failure is acceptable and to learn from their own mistakes. Encourage them to try again and build a growth mindset. One that believes that it is okay to attempt multiple times before bearing the fruits of success.
5. Basic Housekeeping Skill
From making your bed to laundry, everyone needs housekeeping skills to keep the house clean and tidy. Most college students find it challenging to organize their rooms as soon as they move out of their comfort zones - home. This is due to the fact that most parents run around doing everything for their children so much so that the child doesn’t need to get involved.
This really shouldn’t be the case and it can be easily solved by involving them in simple household chores such as folding the blankets, return the stuff to where they were, folding the clothes and anything appropriate for their ages. Teach these skills now, before it’s too late! Won't it be great if there will be another helping hand at home? 🙂
6. Cooking
The ability to cook is just another basic survival skill in life. Home-cooked food is healthier and budget-saving! Start with simple tasks, such as having them wash the vegetables, spread butter on a slice of bread, add seasoning into your dishes and there will be so much more to explore!
Kids will love to involve and they will enjoy the food more if they were involved in the process (and having fun too)!
7. Decision-making
Growing to an adult means that we need to make different decisions throughout the different phases of life. As parents, we can't be always be helping our kids make the decisions and so there must be some form of accountability on them.
How about instilling the skill of making appropriate decisions at an early age in your child? Give them a scenario and ask them to choose between 2 activities. Guide your children throughout the process by weighing the pros and cons before they can make any decision. Encourage them to think through a decision, to ask for second opinions when they are in doubt, and to let them understand that they will need to bear the consequences (good or bad) of their decisions. We know this is hard, but it gets easier over time!
