Life Skills Your Children Should Learn As They Become Teenagers / Adults

When all of us do parenting, we often wonder what are the life skills our children should possess in their lives even before they become adults? Most of the time, the benchmark we use is what we knew when we were young or what our parents taught us. The times are changing and the children are constrained by the new environment that they need to cope up with. Therefore, they need to find new ways to build life skills apart from what they learn from their earlier generation parents. This struggle is happening in every home and unless both parents and children recognize this problem, they wouldn’t be able to resolve it amicably with a right solution.

1. Interact with strangers – Especially, if we raise a girl child, we tell her not to interact with a stranger. Once they grow up past Middle school, we need to educate them how to interact with the strangers. 4 years in the high school is time for them to prepare as they get ready to live on their own in the dorm or their own apartment when they begin their collegiate education. At the same time, these kids should be able to smell the danger, defend themselves or walk away depending on the circumstances they face. Social interaction is an important life skill one should possess at a very early stage in life.

2. Make a meal – In an environment where both parents are working which is common now in every household, the children should be able to prepare a quick meal on their own without endangering themselves at home, if necessary. With traffic, personal emergencies, conflict of time at work, early close of school, dependency of grandparents/baby sitters, etc., the children need to know how to feed themselves, if they were to stay home alone. The children need to realize in a few years, they will be on their own feeding themselves either with the friends or alone.

3. Time management – The children should learn to wake themselves up in the morning to prepare themselves to go to school as early as possible. Parents should not make it a habit to struggle to wake the children up before they go to work. Time management skills become a nightmare when they get older, if they don’t learn this life skill early in their childhood. Estimating time needed to finish homework, preparation time for exams, time needed to get to the school, getting ready to go to school, etc. should be learned by them automatically with the help of the parents.

4. Transportation – The children should familiarize themselves about, use of bike to go to school, use of public transportation, catching the school bus, ride with a friend’s parents to and from the school, traffic rules, what they should do when they don’t have their ride back home, etc. In some countries, earlier they learn to drive, better it is. They should learn how to pump gas, fill air into the tires and what they should do when the vehicle breaks down. They should learn to adjust to the weather, road conditions, etc. very quickly.

5. Exercise – In a world of audio-visual games, it is important that they learn one or more sports apart from learning the art of self-defense. Natural exertion in the form of sports control the tendency to become obese. If they don’t have inclination for sports, they should learn how to exercise at home or in a fitness center. Yoga, dance, biking, swimming, hiking, speed walk, etc. can help.

6. Knowledge building and sharing – In the world of web, there is so much information available for the children to access both good and bad. They should learn to discriminate which information is authentic. Unlike the earlier generation, they can build a lot of general knowledge on their own besides academic education. They should share such information with the friends and have an open mind to listen to what their friends are willing to share.

7. Serve – A very important trait the children should learn at a young age is how to help people in need. Whether it is helping an elderly person, another child in need of help, an animal that needs love and support, they should be able and willing to do such acts. The parents accompanying them to do social work during the weekends make them indulge more and more in such acts later.

8. Creativity – As their brain development takes place, they are looking to get involved in creative work. They may have inclination to sing, dance, play a musical instrument, indulge in painting or other arts or even get involved in gardening. The parents should in fact, involve them in whatever they are interested in. This is an important phase of their development.

9. Communication – This is an art and science. Sometimes, the best way to communicate is to remain silent and listen as much as possible. Other times, standing up for themselves or for others through effective communication is a great trait. Learning to differentiate the situation and circumstances is very important. In fact, this skill helps them when they find their life partner and long-term friends.

10. Attire – A child that knows what outfit to wear for specific occasions are the ones that gets the best attention in a social gathering. To the extent possible, the parents should tell them the occasion and make them come to their own conclusion about what to wear. Initially, it is hard but over a period, the children learn very quickly.

I have other points but limiting this to some major ones that came to my mind. I am eager to listen from the ILites about their parenting experience.

 

@Sparkle

It is a wonderful addition and I know I was forgetting something. Overall, knowing how to balance budget, plan for expenses, spend wisely, conservation of money, etc. are skills they need to learn. They should not be waiting until after they earn money to learn that skill.

Viswa

 

@Rihana,

It doesn't matter where, how and from whom they pick those skills. They need to build those skills. Period. Both parents and children are busy in their own ways but they need to take time to build these skills early before they become independent.

Viswa