Learning skills for kids

Bright Horizons | Teaching Kids Life Skills: 7 Essential Life Skills to Help Your Child Succeed

What Are the Most Important Life Skills for Kids to Learn?

1. Focus and Self-Control
2. Perspective-Taking
3. Communication
4. Making Connections
5. Critical Thinking
6. Taking on Challenges
7. Self-Directed, Engaged Learning

What Are Life Skills?

Teachers sometimes describe these skills as “learning to learn” skills, which can be developed through intentional daily activities. 

Below, we explore the seven essential life skills and offer some simple ways to nurture them.

Life Skill Activities to Incorporate into Your Child’s Daily Routine

1. Focus and Self-Control

Children thrive on schedules, habits, and routines, which not only create a feeling of security, but also help children learn self-control and focus. Talk with your child about what to expect each day. Organize your home so your child knows where to put shoes, coats, and personal belongings. We live in a noisy, distraction-filled world, so quiet activities like reading a book, enjoying sensory activities, or completing a puzzle together can help your child slow down and increase focus.

2. Perspective-Taking

Thinking about another’s point of view doesn’t come naturally to most children, but it can be developed. Discuss characters’ feelings and motivations in the books you read, e.g., “I wonder why the cat and the pig wouldn’t help the little red hen.” Make observations about how others are feeling, e.g., “Alex was really sad that he didn’t get a turn. I wonder what we can do to make him feel better.”

3. Communication

Children need high-touch personal interactions every day to build healthy social-emotional skills, including the ability to understand and communicate with others. While the pace at which they develop these skills may vary, children need to learn how to “read” social cues and listen carefully. They must consider what they want to communicate and the most effective way to share it. Just talking with an interested adult can help build these skills. Spend time every day listening and responding to your child without distractions.

4. Making Connections

True learning, says Galinsky, occurs when we can see connections and patterns between seemingly disparate things. The more connections we make, the more sense and meaning we make of the world. Young children begin to see connections and patterns as they sort basic household items like toys and socks. Simple acts, such as choosing clothing appropriate for the weather, helps them build connections. Point out more abstract connections in life, or in stories you read, e.g., “This book reminds me of when we picked sea shells at the beach.”

5. Critical Thinking

We live in a complex world in which adults are required to analyze information and make decisions about myriad things every day. One of the best ways to build critical thinking is through rich, open-ended play. Make sure your child has time each day to play alone or with friends. This play might include taking on roles (pretending to be fire fighters or super heroes), building structures, playing board games, or playing outside physical games, such as tag or hide-and-go-seek. Through play, children formulate hypotheses, take risks, try out their ideas, make mistakes, and find solutions—all essential elements in building critical thinking.

6. Taking on Challenges

One of the most important traits we can develop in life is that of resilience—being able to take on challenges, bounce back from failure, and keep trying. Children learn to take on challenges when we create an environment with the right amount of structure—not so much as to be limiting, but enough to make them feel safe. Encourage your child to try new things and allow reasonable risk, such as climbing a tree or riding a bike. Offer a new challenge when she seems ready, e.g., “I think you’re ready to learn to tie your shoes. Let’s give it a try.” Focus more on effort than achievement, e.g. , “Learning to tie your shoes was really hard, but you kept trying. Well done.”

7. Self-Directed, Engaged Learning

A child who loves learning becomes an adult who is rarely bored in life. To encourage a love of learning, try to limit television and encourage plenty of reading, play, and open-ended exploration. Model curiosity and enthusiasm for learning in your own life by visiting the library together, keeping craft supplies, making games available, and allowing for some messes at home.

By following these simple tips, you can easily help your child build essential skills.

Bright Horizons Podcast: Lemons to Lemonade with Four Ingredients

On this episode of the Work-Life Equation, turn those parenting lemons into lemonade! It might not seem like it, but your child is more predictable than you think—and each stage of your child’s development, along with every meltdown, is a gateway to skill-building for your little one. Hear early childhood experts Ellen Galinsky and Rachel discuss the science behind parenting that can turn frustration into great skills for life.

More on Life Skills for Children

• Many of the skills children will need as adults to compete in a global economy are not easily taught in a typical classroom setting. Read more to learn about the lifelong benefits of play.
• One of the most important things you can do as a parent is to raise kind children and therefore, kind adults. Explore our list of everyday ways to encourage kindness in your preschooler.
• How can you give your children the life skills they need to cope in the modern world? Learn simple, everyday ways to build life skills in your children and help them manage stress.

New skills for kids & behaviour management

Helping children learn new skills as part of behaviour management

When children can do the things they want or need to do, they’re more likely to cooperate. They’re also less likely to get frustrated and behave in challenging ways. This means that helping children learn new skills can be an important part of managing behaviour.

When children learn new skills, they also build independence, confidence and self-esteem. So helping children learn new skills can be an important part of supporting overall development too.

Here’s an example: if your child doesn’t know how to set the table, they might refuse to do it – because they can’t do it. But if you show your child how to set the table, they’re more likely to do it. They’ll also get a sense of achievement and feel good about helping to get your family meal ready.

There are 3 key ways you can help children learn everything from basic self-care to more complicated social skills:

• modelling
• instructions
• step by step.

Remember that skills take time to develop, and practice is important. But if you have any concerns about your child’s behaviour, development or ability to learn new skills, see your GP or your child and family health nurse.

When you’re helping your child learn a skill, you can use more than one teaching method at a time. For example, your child might find it easier to understand instructions if you also break down the skill or task into steps. Likewise, modelling might work better if you give instructions at the same time.

Modelling

Through watching you, your child learns what to do and how to do it. When this happens, you’re ‘modelling’.

Modelling is usually the most efficient way to help children learn a new skill. For example, you’re more likely to show rather than tell your child how to make a bed, sweep a floor or throw a ball.

Modelling can work for social skills. Prompting your child with phrases like ‘Thank you, Mum’, or ‘More please, Dad’ is an example of this.

You can also use modelling to show your child skills and behaviour that involve non-verbal communication, like body language and tone of voice. For example, you can show how you turn to face people when you talk to them, or look them in the eyes and smile when you thank them.

Children also learn by watching other children. For example, your child might try new foods with other children at preschool even though they might not do this at home with you.

How to make modelling work well

• Get your child’s attention, and make sure your child is looking at you.
• Move slowly through the steps of the skill so that your child can clearly see what you’re doing.
• Point out the important parts of what you’re doing – for example, ‘See how I am …’. You might want to do this later if you’re modelling social skills like greeting a guest.
• Give your child plenty of opportunities to practise the skill once they’ve seen you do it – for example, ‘OK, now you have a go’.

Instructions

You can help your child learn how to do something by explaining what to do or how to do it.

How to give good instructions

• Give instructions only when you have your child’s attention.
• Use your child’s name and encourage your child to look at you while you speak.
• Get down to your child’s physical level to speak.
• Remove any background distractions like the TV.
• Use language that your child understands. Keep your sentences short and simple.
• Use a clear, calm voice.
• Use gestures to emphasise things that you want your child to notice.
• Gradually phase out your instructions and reminders as your child gets better at remembering how to do the skill or task.

A picture that shows your child what to do can help them understand the instructions. Your child can check the picture when they’re ready to work through the instructions independently. This can also help children who have trouble understanding words.

Sometimes your child won’t follow instructions. This can happen for many reasons. Your child might not understand. Your child might not have the skills to do what you ask every time. Or your child just might not want to do what you’re asking. You can help your child learn to cooperate by balancing instructions and requests.

Step-by-step guidance: breaking down tasks

Some skills or tasks are complicated or involve a sequence of actions. You can break these skills or tasks into smaller steps. The idea is to help children learn the steps that make up a skill or task, one at a time.

How to do step-by-step guidance

• Start with the easiest step if you can.
• Show your child the step, then let them try it.
• Give your child more help with the rest of the task or do it for them.
• Give your child opportunities to practise the step.
• When your child can do the step reliably and without your help, teach them the next step, and so on.
• Keep going until your child can do the whole skill or task for themselves.

An example of step-by-step guidance
Here’s how you could break down the task of getting dressed:

• Get clothes out.
• Put on underpants.
• Put on socks.
• Put on shirt.
• Put on pants.
• Put on a jumper.

You could break down each of these steps into parts as well. This can help if a task is complex or if your child has learning difficulties. For example, ‘Put on a jumper’ could be broken down like this:

• Face the jumper the right way.
• Pull the jumper over your head.
• Put one arm through.
• Put your other arm through.
• Pull the jumper down.

Forwards or backwards steps?
You can help your child learn steps by moving:

• forwards – teaching your child the first step, then the next step and so on
• backwards – helping your child with all the steps until the last step, then teaching the last step, then the second last step and so on.

Learning backwards has some advantages. Your child is less likely to get frustrated because it’s easier and quicker to learn the last step. Also the task is finished as soon as your child completes the step. Often the most rewarding thing about a job or task is getting it finished!

In the earlier example, you might teach your child to get dressed by starting with a jumper. You’d help your child get dressed until it came to the final step – the jumper.

You might help your child put the jumper over their head and put their arms in – then you might let your child pull the jumper down by themselves. Once your child can do this, you might encourage your child to put their arms through by themselves and then pull the jumper down. This would go on until your child can do each step, so they can do the whole task for themselves.

When your child is learning a new physical skill like getting dressed, it can help to put your hands over your child’s hands and guide your child through the movements. Phase out your help as your child begins to get the idea, but keep saying what to do. Then simply point or gesture. When your child is confident with the skill, you can phase out gestures too.

Tips to help children learn new skills

No matter which of the methods you use, these tips will help your child learn new skills:

• Make sure that your child has the physical ability and developmental maturity to handle the new skill. You might need to teach your child some basic skills before working on more complicated skills.
• Consider timing and environment. Children learn better when they’re alert and focused, so it can be good to work on new skills in the morning or after rest time. It’s also good to avoid distractions, like the TV or younger siblings.
• Give your child the chance to practise the skill. Skills take time to learn, and the more your child practises, the better.
• Give lots of praise and encouragement, especially in the early stages of learning. Praise your child when they follow your instruction, practise the skill or try hard, and say exactly what your child did well.
• Avoid giving negative feedback. Rather than saying your child has done it ‘wrong’, use words and gestures to explain 1-2 things your child could do differently next time.

Remember that behaviour might get worse before it improves, especially if you’re asking more from your child. A positive and constructive approach can help – for example, ‘Well done for getting the knots on your laces right! Would you like to do the loops together today?’

10 skills worth teaching a child in the digital age

The world is changing rapidly, some professions are disappearing, others are appearing. It is no longer possible to learn one thing so as not to relearn and acquire new competencies. But there are skills that will always be in demand in the digital world. Specialists from the CrashPro School of Professions of the Future will tell you what to teach children.

We analyzed the key skills discussed in the report of the experts from Global Education Futures and WorldSkills Russia and added to the list.

1. Concentration and attention control

In the future, routine work will be automated, leaving people with the most complex tasks. The ability to concentrate is useful to cope with information overload, manage complex equipment and systems. Play board games with your child that develop memory and attention, similar game applications can be downloaded to his gadgets. Also, concentration of attention is improved by robotics, because there you need to consistently assemble the structure according to the scheme. This is an exciting activity for children, they can do business for a long time, bringing what they started to the end.

Reward your child if he loses interest in the middle of a session, praise and celebrate when he has finished. Tell the children about the “interest graph” in the learning process. At first everything is easy and interest is high, but as the material becomes more complicated, interest falls and reaches the bottom, at this time most children want to quit classes, they need support and encouragement from an adult. Then the child begins to slowly succeed already at a difficult level, he works again and studies with pleasure.

2. Emotional intelligence

Empathy, empathy, the ability to hear and listen to others - something that machines will never have. Emotional intelligence is now understood as the ability to understand the motives of other people and the ability to manage one's own emotions. Emotional intelligence will help you work in a team and better understand colleagues, as well as manage a team. For its development, the child should have time to play with peers, team games and project-based learning can also help - pedagogical technology when children study in teams.

3. Digital literacy

We live in a digital age. Online you can buy clothes and products, chat and play, you can even find your soulmate using dating sites or applications. But gadgets are not just entertainment, they should become a tool of knowledge, benefit the child. It is impossible to live in the digital world without the ability to work with digital technologies, including virtual and augmented reality. In a number of forecasts, there is an opinion that programming skills can become as necessary for a person as the ability to read and write.

4. Creativity

Routine tasks are performed by machines, so the ability to think outside the box and create something new will be in demand. Creativity is not born from birth, this skill can be developed. This will be helped by classes where the child creates independently, finds new non-standard solutions.

At the CrashPro School of Professions of the Future, junior schoolchildren from the age of seven to nine are engaged in robotics - at this age it is important to strengthen concentration skills so that children can better cope with the increased study load.

Computer literacy is taught here from the age of six, and programming from the age of eight. Creativity develops within the framework of project-based learning, which is used in all CrashPro courses - from animation to programming. Well, children can develop critical thinking in media literacy classes.

5. Intercultural communication

Humanity faces global problems: climate change, overpopulation, environmental pollution and others. Humanity needs to unite to solve them. In science, this has already happened - scientists work in international teams. Big tech companies, too. Such work requires the ability to communicate with people of other cultures, to find a common language with them. A person with an open mind and an open mind - someone who can interact with different people, regardless of their beliefs - is more likely to succeed. Study other people's customs and traditions, introduce your child to a foreign culture.

6. Self-learning ability

This skill is necessary, because a person of the future will have to change about 15 professions in his life. He needs to be flexible, constantly relearning and gaining new skills to keep up with the changing reality. Children need to be taught the habit of acquiring new knowledge - the more effectively they learn to assimilate information, the easier it will be for them to cope with changes. Encourage the child's interest in the environment, answer his questions, if you don't know - look for answers together, give new information about what interests him.

7. Initiative

Initiative is the desire to influence the phenomena and processes occurring around. An enterprising person does not go with the flow, he chooses his own path, knows how to defend his position, and is not afraid to take responsibility. You can help a child become proactive, if you don’t patronize him unnecessarily, let him make decisions on his own, give him the opportunity to choose: in food, education, clothing, and so on.

8. Critical thinking

In an era of information overload and the ability to establish online contacts with a large number of people, a child must distinguish true information from false, good contacts from bad, useful content from garbage. This needs to be taught before children start going online on their own.

9. Ability to work in a team

The child must be able to find a common language with people, unite with other team members to solve common problems - after all, the tasks of the future will be complex, they cannot be handled alone. The skill to act in the common interest should be nurtured from an early age. Project-based learning will also help in this, where children are taught how to interact with each other for the successful implementation of the project.

10. Self-organization

Most likely, in the future, people will work off schedule from 8.00 am to 5.00 pm. The number of remote workers is already on the rise. In 2017, the International Labor Organization calculated that their share of all workers in developed countries is 17%. And in the US and Japan, 40% of people already work outside the office.

Generations Y and Z tend to change jobs every two to three years and are more likely to choose a free schedule. At the same time, work tasks have to be solved not at a specific time, but as they arise. Employers evaluate not the number of working hours, but the effectiveness of employees' actions and the results obtained. To be productive in this mode, you need to be able to organize yourself. The importance of self-organization, the ability to manage time, and to separate important and urgent tasks from things that can be postponed will increase. Help your child learn time management and plan their day wisely.

Illustrations: Shutterstock (FoxyImage)

What skills to develop in a child and how it will help in the future

Photo: Nicolas Picard / Unsplash

A person's success in a profession is 85% dependent on soft skills. Together with Natalia Gatanova, psychologist, mother and scientific director of the MKEBI Foundation, we figure out what it is and how to develop it in young children

Scientists divide human skills into two conditional groups: professional hard skills and supraprofessional soft skills.

1. Hard skills For example, a programmer's skill is to write code in python. hard skills can be learned at school, university, at work, courses or trainings.
2. Soft skills (“soft” skills) is a set of social skills that help a person solve problems in life: communication, leadership, teamwork, people management, emotional intelligence. Soft skills cannot be learned in training, they are formed in childhood and develop throughout life.