What Life Skills Can I Teach My Kids?

Home schooling, home learning, eLearning – whatever you called it – it’s exhausting.

This got me pondering what life skills we could be teaching our kids during this life in never ending lockdown.

Learning isn’t just about mastering spellings and times tables. A lot takes place outside of the school and formal academic environment – particularly now, and spending some time teaching practical life skills at home will help set your child up for the future.

 The 10 Core Life Skills

UNESCO and WHO list the ten core life skill strategies and techniques as:

problem solving, critical thinking, effective communication skills, decision-making, creative thinking, interpersonal relationship skills, self- awareness building skills, empathy, and coping with stress and emotions.

But for me there is no definitive list of life skills as certain skills may be more or less relevant to you or your kids depending on everyone’s life circumstances.

It is also true that different life skills will be relevant at different times your life.

For example:

If you are at school or university, you’ll need study skills. These may include understanding how to organise yourself for study, do research, and even write up a dissertation or thesis. These are not skills that everyone will need, but writing skills are likely to be useful in a variety of careers and jobs.

If you are considering buying a house, you may need to employ negotiation skills, and you will certainly need plenty of patience and  a even temper!  These skills are also likely to be high on your ‘essential life skills’ list if you have children!

You’re kids will need to work on their employability skills to get a job, and will also need to think about how they apply for a job, and how they might cope in an interview;

Then when they have a job, they  may need to develop leadership skills, especially if they need to lead teams or groups.

So, it’s a constantly moving feast of relevant and useful life skills.

But as I’m always rather practical I thought whilst you are  #ParentingInAPandemic you could ‘talk and teach’  your kids about – learning to cook and following a recipe, learning to change a fuse, or change a tyre if your kids are older, learning to tie shoelaces, learning to tell the time, learn how to put up a shelf, or learn how to put up a tent, learn how to work the washing machine, learn about earning, saving and spending money – (click on the link to listen to my interview with Louise Hill of goHenry the money management app  – for making every kid good with money! ) learn  how to change their bedlinen, learn what to do in an Emergency – like dialling 999, learn how to wrap a present, ride a bike, sew on a button, write a thank you letter,  learn touch typing, clean learn how to clean  their shoes, or learn how to wash the car, or learn to dress themselves.

Then there’s learning to respect themselves and others, learning to be self sufficient, learning to be kind, learning to do things for others…. the list is endless isn’t it?

What would you add?