After Knowing the importance of Life Skills, we can easily
know that it's something that is very important, but which cannot be taught
with lectures and textbooks.
2) Thinking Skills
3) Social Skills
4) Success Skills
5) Practical Skills
6) Happiness Skills
Teach your child from a young age.
Introduce the right skill at right age - e.g. You could wait until teenage years to introduce something like financial skills.
Remember - Children Imitate... they follow what they see. Set right example and you dont have to set rules!!
- Saving. Spend less than you earn.
- Budgeting. You could wait until teenage years to do something
like this — but it’s a good thing because this shows them why basic math
is necessary.
- Paying bills.
- Investing. What is investing and why is it necessary?
- Frugality. This is something to teach them from an early age.
How to shop around to get a good deal.
- Credit. Teach them the responsible use for credit, and how
to avoid it when it’s not necessary.
- Retirement. Is it better to work hard and retire or to take
mini-retirements throughout life?
- Charity. This should be not only a financial issue, but a
social one. Show them how to volunteer their time and effort as well.
Thinking
- Critical thinking. One of the most important skills
not taught in school. Just start introducing the habit of questioning why?
And the skill of find out the answer.
- Reading. Off course... we’re taught to read. But schools
most often make this boring. Show your child the wonderful imaginative
worlds there are out there.
Success
- Positive thinking. Find solutions instead of
complaints. And most of all, learn to believe in yourself, and to block
out negative self-thinking.
- Motivation. Learn that discipline isn’t the key to achieving a
goal, but motivation.
- Procrastination. Learn the reasons behind
procrastination, and how to address them. How to beat procrastination.
- Passion. Your child won’t know the answer at a young age,
but you should show her how to find her passion and how to pursue it, and
why that’s important.
Social
- Anti-competition. Lets your child learn
cooperation before competition. Teach your child how there is room for
many people to be successful, and how you’re more likely to be successful
if you help others to be successful, and how they’ll help you in return.
- Compassion. Not taught in the schools at all. Learn to put
yourself in the shoes of others, to try to understand them, and to help
them end their suffering.
- Love. Compassion’s twin brother, love differs only in
that instead of wanting to ease the suffering of others, you want their
happiness.
- Listening. Learn how to truly listen to someone, to
understand what they’re saying, to empathize.
- Conversation. Goes hand-in-hand with
listening, but the art of conversation is something that isn’t taught in
school - A conversation is what is needed, not a lecture. Learn to
converse with your child instead of talk at him.
Practical
- Auto. Why cars are needed, how to buy a practical car,
how to take care of it. How the engine works, what might break down, and
how it’s fixed. Should be taught to both boys and girls (that should be
obvious, but I had to say it).
- Household. How to fix things around the house and keep things
maintained. Plumbing, electricity, heating and cooling, painting, roofing,
lawn, all that good stuff.
- Cleaning. Teach your child all the things - laundry, clean a
house properly, keep the house clean and uncluttered, have a weekly and
monthly cleaning routine.
- Organization. How to keep paperwork organized,
how to keep things in their place, to keep a to-do list, how to set
routines, how to focus on the important tasks.
Happiness
- Be present. In truth, the younger we are, the more natural
this skill is. Some skills for living in the present would go a long way.
- Enjoy life. Kids don’t have much of a problem with this, but
some awareness of its importance and how to do it, even as an adult, would
be helpful.
- Find purpose. Having a purpose in life is
extremely important. Teach your children the importance of this and show
how to do it yourself.
- Develop intimate relationships. The best way to teach this is to develop an intimate relationship with your child, and model it with your spouse or other significant other (within appropriateness).
--Dr. Asawari Chitale
