By Soumya Shrivastava (Child Minder Expert / Facilitator/ Life Coach )
Every day of your life is another lesson. If you learn the lesson well and apply it; whether positive or negative, you determine what happens in your tomorrow.
–David Kofi Awusi
Life Skills have become an integral part of day-to-day teachings, it is very essential to know these skills as they are a part of our lifestyle and development and how we tackle various moments or situation define how much we Excel in these skills.
What are Life Skills…
Life skills are the basic skills that help us perform day-to-day task/activities with ease and it helps in making us more competent to face the world. In today’s scenario, teaching these skills to kids from the initial years is becoming the need of an hour.
Most of the skills that children need in this competitive world are not taught in the classroom, and that is why, when asked, most children don’t even know the real meaning of life skills.
We develop and learn these skills from our elders, family members, friends. These are very essential as they help us in facing and overcoming the challenges life gives.
They are learned only with experience at home under their parent’s guidance. It depends on you as a parent on how and when you want to teach your children these skills. The earlier you start, the better for your child.
Why Life Skills are Important…
Life skills and development are deeply interconnected and can help our children succeed later in life — professionally and personally.
Apart from academics at school, children are busy with additional classes for sports or music or other activities to get ahead in every field, due to which a life skill education is a must be taught to children.
Teaching our children life skills is not only important for self-care and sufficiency, but it also empowers them and improves their self-esteem, social skills, and thinking abilities.
Lets Learn more about Life Skills…
Is it to know how to talk? How to sit? How to behave? Not exactly. It’s way more interesting than that and way more important than this.
Sharing few basic life skills which, I feel, are the important skills and play an important role in any child’s life –
*Basic first aid and importance of health
*Self-defense
*Self reliant
*Time management
*Decision making
*Basic shopping skills and managing money
*Easy cooking
*Socializing
*Basic household tasks
To comprise them all, here are five important life skills to teach your children-
Decision making
We all know the importance of making the right decision at the right time. Children should be taught and must learn to decide at a very young age.
as it helps them stay ahead of others and make the right judgment when the time comes.
Tell your child to begin with fundamental decisions like choosing between rubber or plastic balls, strawberry or vanilla ice cream, ball or plastic ball, toy guitar, or keyboard.
These are small things, but that’s how kids learn to decide and become self reliant. Tell them how decision-making can help them not just now but in adult life as well.
Time management
We all know how important time management is in our personal and professional lives. Not just adults, but time management is also crucial for kids as it helps them stay ahead of time. It teaches them to master.
The time at a very young age to do everything on time, such as getting up on time to going to school on time, and everything in between.
Hygiene and Health
Teach your children the importance of hygiene and health. Children are too young to know the importance of health and personal hygiene. Start by telling them why eating fruits and vegetables is essential for a healthy body, regularly washing hands, brushing twice a day, taking a shower every day, changing their undergarments, and others. As adults, we are too busy with our daily chores and rarely tell our children about maintaining health and hygiene.
Money management
Many people say that for children it is not very important, but I stand to differ. Money management is one of the most crucial and far more essential life skills to be known and practiced by anyone from any age group, and it should be underlined and counted in the life skills list.
When we teach our children to count and some basic math, why not extend that to counting money? Teach your children about the importance of money at all stages of life.
As adults, we know how important money is for us, and we can manage it pretty well, but do children know it? They learn everything from their parents, so it’s essential to teach them.
Start by encouraging them to save a small amount of change (which we keep here and there, and it keep lying in a drawer or at any corner) ask them to collect that money or start giving them pocket money (at right age) and encourage them to keep it safe, they can later buy a useful thing for themselves or any family member on any special occasion. It will teach our children practical skills such as saving, spending wisely, and using choosing whether it is necessary to even buy that thing.
Getting organized / Independent / Socializing
Children can learn to become organized if taught at an early age. Skills such as preparing school bags, picking out the clothes for the next day, getting ready on their own, making the bed, doing laundry, keeping the dishes in the sink, Teaching them how to make some quick and easy fireless cooking dish (bread toast, biscuit bites, shakes, lemonade) are all early steps to becoming organized.
We should encourage our kids to make more and more friends and socialize more, than they will learn a lot from others and boost their confidence in sharing their knowledge and thoughts. They will also learn about sharing things with others.
By teaching life skills, we are preparing our younger generations to become self dependent and successful beings as these skills will help in developing the following good practices in kids–positive attitude, empathy; learn to listen to others carefully; learn to set personal Boundary; handle disputes well; find a balance between priorities and demands; communicate confidently; decide; solve problems; think critically and creatively and learn to bounce back from adversity. Teach your children all such good and necessary life skills and see a better version of them.
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