Learning skills in children

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.

25 Essential Life Skills For Kids To Learn

Assist your child's development into an independent adult by preparing them for life.

Image: Shutterstock

As a parent, you must instill certain basic life skills for kids, including social, interpersonal, coordination, problem-solving, and creative skills. Children who are well-acquainted with these skills may find it easier to make decisions, meet day-to-day challenges, and handle situations better in the absence of elders.

Life skills are to be taught to children from an early age. Parents must make sure that their children learn and practice these skills to grow into successful adults in the future.

Browse through this post to learn about the essential life skills for your child and learn the importance of teaching these skills to your children.

What Are Life Skills?

The World Health Organization defines life skills as “a group of psychosocial competencies and interpersonal skills that help people make informed decisions, solve problems, think critically and creatively, communicate effectively, build healthy relationships, empathize with others, and cope with and manage their lives in a healthy and productive manner.”

Empowering your children to hone their life skills will help them make logical decisions and learn what to do in different situations and how to do them.

Importance Of Life Skills For Kids

Developing life skills is a lifelong process and helps individuals grow, become mature, and achieve success. Building essential life skills is an exercise that helps children develop proper judgment and good habits. Life skills also help develop children’s personalities, talents, and mental and physical abilities. In everyday life, possessing life skills helps children

• Find different ways of solving problems.

• Build self-confidence and self-esteem.

• Analyze options.

• Develop a greater sense of self-awareness.

• Appreciate others and build empathy.

• Make better decisions.

• Recognize the impact of their actions.

• Become responsible.

• Improve self-regulation.

• Prevent negative and high-risk behaviors.

Essential Life Skills For Kids To Learn

Here is a long list of essential life skills that parents should help their children acquire.

1. Cultivating independence

Image: iStock

To let children build independence, allow them to understand a few things on their own and give them opportunities to do tasks and activities without assistance. This helps build self-confidence and self-esteem and encourages them to do simple tasks without help and be self-reliant.

2. Decision-making

Making appropriate decisions is an essential life skill that every child should learn and practice from a tender age. For example, allow your child to choose between different types of clothes, toys, food, and games. This will help your child learn the consequences of each decision they make. Guide your child through this process to help them weigh the pros and cons before making any decision. Also, allow them to make mistakes when making decisions and learn through practice.

3. Self-defense

Self-defense skills will help the child gain self-confidence and inner strength and serve them well in their lives. Self-defense is not just about protecting oneself from physical force. Instead, it includes being proactive to prevent problems and using assertiveness to respond to bullying. It also teaches children how to identify dangerous situations, assess them, and then handle them.

4. Understanding another person’s perspective

When your child explains some difficult situation that they or their friends encountered, encourage the child to look at the scenario from another person’s perspective. Teach your child the emotional reactions people give out in various situations. This can improve their problem-solving skills and ability to understand people around them.

5. Talking to strangers

As your little child grows, they will meet different people, including teachers, classmates, bus drivers, and shopkeepers. Teach your child how to talk to strangers and explain themselves. This will help improve their communication and listening skills and make them more sociable. Explain to your child that not all strangers are bad and that they need to be friendly with people, all the while knowing that they need to maintain a safe distance and not be too friendly with everyone either.

6. Time management

Image: iStock

Time management is a skill that helps children in every activity they do. It teaches them to differentiate between important work and urgent work and prioritize their tasks and duties. To learn a few tips on how to teach time management to children, click here.

7. Coping with failure

Failure is a part of life, and it helps every individual learn life lessons. Remember that you won’t be there to soothe your child every single time they feel left out or falls short at a task.

Make your child understand that failure is a part of the learning process and teach them to embrace their failures. Explain to them that failure doesn’t define a person and that it is how people cope with failures and come out stronger from that that counts.

8. Critical thinking

Critical thinking is one of the essential skills that every child should learn. Critical thinking helps one analyze and absorb information, compare situations, look at things from different angles, and make inferences.

To develop critical thinking in your children, provide them with opportunities to play games that involve critical thinking, allow your child to solve their problems, teach them to reflect on their responses, ask open-end questions, and encourage them to think in new and different ways.

9. Facing challenges

A child can grow up to be a strong adult when they learn how to take on challenges. Therefore, encourage your child to try new and different things. You could let them start by learning how to ride a bike or climb a tree. Let your child choose their challenges, face failure, bounce back from failure, and keep trying. Taking up challenges helps build confidence and a never-give-up attitude in them.

10. Resilience

Resilience is an important skill you should teach your child. This can be developed by not feeding your child with solutions constantly but by allowing them to understand a problem, think about what they can do, and solve it independently. Make sure that your child is flexible enough to adapt to different kinds of changes and environments.  Here are a few strategies that you could adopt to help build resilience in your children.

11. Budgeting and managing money

Image: iStock

Being money-savvy is a vital skill every individual should possess. Teach your child how to spend responsibly and invest for their future at an early age.

You could give your child a certain amount of pocket money once in fifteen days or once a month. If your child wishes to buy something expensive, ask them to save money and buy it. This practice will ensure they plan their budget, save before spending, and not indulge in impulsive buying.

12. Good health and hygiene

It is vital to teach your child the importance of health and personal hygiene from a very young age. Teach them the importance of brushing their teeth twice a day, washing their hands, taking a bath, and eating healthy.

Also, discuss the different types of food based on your child’s interests. For instance, if your child likes taking care of their hair, talk about foods that contain proteins and potassium. If your child loves physical activity and sports, talk about foods that increase stability and stamina.

13. Treating a wound

It is not possible for you to be around your child every time. Empower your child to take care of themselves in case of any emergency. To ensure that your child does not get anxious looking at a wound, avoid overreacting yourself. Let the child know where the first-aid kit is and how to treat wounds and cuts.

Teach your child to press the area with a clean cloth, hold the cut under the tap water, wash it with a mild soap, apply ointment with a cotton swab, and cover the wound with a bandage, gauze, or tape.

14. Cooking meals

Ask your child to help you make meals. You may assign them a few tasks, such as cutting vegetables and fruits, applying jam or butter onto a piece of bread, or putting the chopped vegetables into a bowl to make a salad.

Preparing simple meals and helping you in the kitchen will help them understand healthy food habits and teach them to be self-independent.

15. Doing laundry

Image: iStock

Teaching your children how to do laundry will reduce your burden and instill responsible habits in them. Young children can help in pairing socks and putting dirty clothes into the laundry basket, while older children can be taught how to use washing machines, measure the right amount of detergent, hang laundry for drying, and fold their clothes.

16. Gift wrapping

Wrapping a gift will help develop the child’s creative thinking skills and help them learn different techniques of wrapping. You could give them paper and tape and ask them to wrap gifts for their friends or grandparents on special occasions. Gift wrapping is also a great way to improve your child’s motor skills and hand-eye coordination.

17. Gardening

Allow your child to help you in the garden and learn about different flowers, fruits, and vegetables. Encourage young children to water the plants regularly, while the elder kids can get involved in weeding, painting the fence panels, and mowing under supervision.  You could also introduce them to some fun and creative gardening activities or DIY garden ideas.

18. Looking after pets

Having pets at home will help your child build empathy and learn how to be caring and responsible. Your child can help you clean the cages, prepare food, take the pets out for a walk, and prepare the bed for them.

19. Digital literacy

Children of this generation spend a considerable amount of time on their screens. So it is essential to reinforce a few rules to help them safely navigate the digital world. First, allow your child to use the web wisely and for a good reason. Second, teach them how to use the Internet safely and responsibly.

20. Cleaning and doing chores

Image: iStock

Getting children involved in cleaning activities is challenging. Start by asking them to keep their room clean, make their bed, and arrange their table. You could also ask them to help you set the dining table for a meal or clean the dishes after eating. Learning how to do chores helps children understand their responsibilities and become independent.

21. Getting ready

It is essential to allow your child to get ready themselves. Let them pick their outfit for the day and wear it on their own. Teach them how to brush their teeth, take a bath, and comb their hair before school. These are basic skills every child should learn from a very young age.

22. Table manners

Teach your child the basic table manners, such as using a knife and fork while eating, washing the hands before meals, and eating with their mouths closed. You could also teach your child how to behave at a restaurant and how to order food.

23. Swimming

Swimming is one of the essential life skills for children. It benefits children in several ways, both physically and mentally, and helps them build confidence. Swimming is also an excellent way to teach children about water safety and improve their endurance.

24. Using maps

Guide your child with the routes around the city and help them remember the different routes via landmarks. You could also ask your child to direct you to your home every time you go out to ensure that they remember the route. Teach them how to read a map and use a GPS.

25. Travelling

It is important that your child knows the basics of traveling. Starting from taking public transport to cycling, make sure that your child is well versed in how to get from one place to the other. For example, teach them how to buy a bus ticket or metro ticket and explain which metro or bus leads to your house.

Life Skills Checklist For Kids

Do you want your child to be prepared to face the real world and grow into independent adults? Help them with these age-specific abilities.

Life skills for kids play an intense role in their overall growth and development. These help them succeed in various ventures of life in the right way. Life skills allow children to realize their true potential and improve their self-esteem by making them feel more independent. Learning and adapting them can also enhance their decision-making ability to live harmonically with others in society. Therefore, you must consider teaching these life skills at an earlier age, in ways that they would find fun and entertaining. Lastly, remember that teaching life skills to your child requires effort, patience, time, and consistent work.

Key Pointers

• Building life skills is a life-long process that should begin in childhood.
• Inculcating life skills in children helps them analyze options, make logical decisions, and understand the impact of their decision on others.
• Time management, critical thinking, coping with failure, and resilience are a few life skills that children should learn to be self-aware, confident, and responsible.
• Assigning age-specific tasks to children from a young age can help teach life skills to them.

References:

MomJunction's articles are written after analyzing the research works of expert authors and institutions. Our references consist of resources established by authorities in their respective fields. You can learn more about the authenticity of the information we present in our editorial policy.

1. Knowledge Brief; Basic Life Skills Curriculum.

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Bharathi is a content developer and writer with over 20 years of experience in creating original content for e-books, articles, websites, blogs, ads, brochures, company profiles, speeches, business presentations, instructional design and more. She has also edited financial papers and books. She writes kids’ education-based articles for MomJunction. Bharathi is associated with The Hindu group of publications in their STEP program,...
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With a passion for reading and understanding about the human mind and how it functions, Dr Sadhvi Mythili took up Psychiatry after completing her graduation in Medicine from Kakatiya Medical College, Telangana. She pursued post graduation from the prestigious Asha Hospital. With over five years of experience in Psychiatry (adult and child), Dr. Mythili is currently working with Apollo Clinic...
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What skills to develop in a child and how it will help in the future

Photo: Nicolas Picard / Unsplash

85% of a person's success in a profession depends 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 - highly specialized skills for performing certain tasks at work. 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.

A simple model of professional competencies in the form of a doll. “Hard” skills inside, “flexible” skills outside (Photo: Moscow School of Management Skolkovo)

According to the results of a joint study by scientists from Harvard, Stanford and the Carnegie Endowment, soft skills determine the success of a person in the profession by 85%, and only 15% depends on highly specialized skills.

In a survey by the UK's Sutton Trust, 88% of young people, 94% of employers and 97% of teachers surveyed said they considered "life skills" as or more important than academic ones. The changing VUCA world requires a person to quickly adapt to the new. VUCA is an acronym for instability (volatility), uncertainty (uncertainty), complexity (complexity), and ambiguity (ambiguity). It is important now to pay attention to the development of soft skills in a child to help them cope with changes and not get lost in the future.

Like adults, the most important skills for children are communication skills, while you need to pay attention to leadership and group work, says Natalia Gatanova, scientific director of the MKEBI Foundation.

• Communication skills. The child must learn to communicate: introduce themselves, get to know each other, agree to play together. If necessary, ask for help from adults or peers, offer to provide it yourself. Explain exactly what they need and why. By developing communication skills, the child learns to accept different points of view and argue his own.
• Leadership qualities. Leadership is confidence in yourself and your abilities. The child learns to take responsibility for the decisions made and the people around. If no one wants to play, he will offer to start. A toddler can feel invisible and unreal if he constantly waits for someone to organize the game for him or solve all the problems. Children should feel like full-fledged people who know how to achieve their goals and make the right decisions for this.
• Working in a group. The ability to work and be in a group with other children helps to achieve big goals, compete and negotiate, develops leadership and communication. Working in a group, the child is not afraid to accept the rules of the game, to maintain his role and enjoy it.

Six major megatrends that are changing the world. From the Skills of the Future report

Global Education Futures and WorldSkills Russia experts recommend developing ten key skills that people will need in the future:

1. Attention control and concentration. Will help you cope with information noise and overload, manage processes and solve complex problems.
2. Creative thinking. In the future, routine tasks will be automated, so the skills of creative thinking and the creation of creative ideas will help to remain a sought-after specialist in the labor market.
3. Logic. Logic develops computational thinking. Helps to solve complex problems and make informed decisions.
4. Spatial thinking and imagination. Helps to correlate oneself with the surrounding space, imagine new objects and navigate in it.
5. Information handling skills. Digital literacy and programming skills are as important as reading skills. These are basic skills that everyone needs in a new complex world.
6. Self-organization and time management. Zoomers and millennials are more likely to choose a free schedule and change jobs. Remote work is becoming the norm and sets a new era - self-organization. Skills will help you manage time, projects and life.
7. Emotional intelligence. Through emotions we react to what is happening around us. The skill helps to manage your emotional state, avoid neurosis, depression and apathy.
8. Intercultural communication. Global changes are forcing economies, corporations and communities to come together to solve common problems. Intercultural communication skills help build relationships with people from other areas and countries.
9. The ability to learn, unlearn and relearn. Self-learning helps you learn skills on your own in a rapidly changing world and adapt to change.
10. Critical thinking. The skill helps to think clearly and rationally, to look for a logical connection between facts and to formulate strong arguments.

In her TED talk, teacher Rimma Rappoport talks about how children can develop soft skills in Russian language lessons0097 RBC Trends ), the child understands his needs if the mother adequately responds to them. That is, if a mother feeds her son when he is cold, he develops an incorrect understanding of himself at an unconscious level. Already at the age of three, the child wants to decide for himself: what cartoon to watch, what to wear and what toys to play. He imagines that the world is built around his desires. If a child does not understand himself, he cannot satisfy his needs.

In the theory of self-determination, there are three basic human needs.

1. To be accepted — the child plays with other children, feels needed and useful.
2. To be independent - the child understands that he can change something if he wants to. For example, put toys in your own way or choose clothes.
3. Be successful and competent - the child knows that if he is given a difficult task, he will cope with it. Adults may not pay attention to this, explaining with the phrase “you will grow up, you will understand,” but this is not true. You need to treat the child as a complete person.

Psychological comfort and health depend on the satisfaction of basic needs. If a child learns to understand and meet his needs in childhood, he will grow up to be an independent adult who responds calmly to difficulties. Such adults are sure that any problem can be solved.

Circles and sections develop, but you should not rely only on additional education. Soft skills are formed from birth, so it is better to set a personal example for a child and take him seriously.

1. Personal example. The child adopts behavior patterns by imitating adults. Parents set patterns of communication if they openly communicate with people, express feelings, ask for help, solve problems. For example, if you want your child to say hello, say hello yourself.
2. Attitude. A child is not a small adult who begins to live after 18 years of age, but a full-fledged person. Take your child seriously, ask his opinion. If you give a choice, it must be real. For example, the offer to choose a cup for milk is imaginary, because the child will still have to drink milk. Better ask what he wants to drink: tea, water, milk or juice.
3. Inner environment. Relatives, friends and acquaintances are the inner circle of the child. They set patterns for all forms of communication that develop soft skills. If a child comes to a development group with an atmosphere of mutual respect and the opportunity for self-expression, soft skills will develop. At the same time, sending a shy child to a development group and expecting him to become a leader in it is not worth it. It is better to give the child a responsible task with the right to make mistakes. If there is a bakery on the ground floor of the house, assign a child to be responsible for the bread in the house. This is a task with real actions: take money, go to the store, choose bread and bring it home.

In order to see the difficulties with the development of soft skills in a child in time, look at his behavior. For example, if a child comes to a group of children, but cannot find a friend to play in 5-10 minutes, then he has difficulties. The child may not say hello, hide, or stand aside for a long time and watch other children play. Try to talk to him and find out the reasons for this behavior, contact a child psychologist.

Talk to kindergarten teachers, school teachers or parents of classmates. If it is difficult for adults to work with a child: he refuses everything, bullies the guys, “pulls the blanket over himself” - and this is not a one-time phenomenon, then there are difficulties.

Psychotherapist Andrei Kurpatov in the book Happy Child. Universal Rules” writes that not understanding the reasons for children's crying, parents defiantly leave the child alone with his misfortune, making a lot of mistakes in emotional education

Soft skills develop gradually throughout life. Some skills form others. For example, communication develops emotional intelligence and the ability to manage people. There is no set age when a child will grow up and trade one set of soft skills for others.

In order for the child to understand his needs and be able to meet them, the mother must correctly respond to the emotions and demands of the child in childhood and give the right feedback in a timely manner. Then, if a child breaks a toy and cries, he will understand that he is crying because of a broken toy, and not a bad mother. You need to believe in your child, love him and give him the opportunity to live, and not prepare for life in the future.

To develop your child's soft skills:

• Respond correctly to needs at an early age, give timely feedback. So the child learns to understand himself and satisfy basic needs.
• Pay attention to communication, leadership and group work - these are the most important soft skills in a child.
• Lead by example in how you behave, communicate, and work with others.
• Treat your child like a complete adult with your own opinion.
• Watch your inner circle - ask relatives to set the right example, send the child to development groups with an atmosphere of mutual respect.
• See a specialist if your child has difficulty developing communication and soft skills.
• Love and respect your child.

8 skills that are useful for developing a preschooler and elementary school student

School preparation / Early childhood development

The LogicLike team talks about the skills that are important to master in preschool and primary school age in the first place.

LogicLike is an online platform for the development of children aged 5-12. We teach children to reason and work with information, develop logic and non-standard thinking.

1. Ability and desire to learn: cognitive abilities and interest in learning

Perception, attention, memory, imagination, speech, thinking are mental cognitive processes that make up the ability and desire to learn. For most children, the development of cognitive interest is a natural process laid down by nature. At preschool age, inquisitive children most of all want to discover something new.

Closer to 5-7 years, the child no longer simply perceives information in finished form, as it was before. An inquisitive mind seeks to find answers to questions on its own. An inquisitive preschooler learns to bring different concepts into one system, analyzes them, compares them, looks for patterns and draws conclusions.

Hot interest and curiosity are the basis of independent motivation of a preschooler and a first grader to study.

The elementary school curriculum does not contain separate classes devoted to the development of cognitive abilities. Therefore, the task of teaching the child to learn largely falls on the parents.

High cognitive interest plus developed attention, memory, thinking and other cognitive abilities will help you get used to school without stress, become more independent, proactive and avoid chronic academic failure.

See also: The benefits of entertaining mathematics and solving logic problems.

The ability to learn independently cannot be overestimated. Technology is developing many times faster than it was 20 years ago, and specialists of any profession are in the race for new knowledge. Try to imagine what will happen in another 20 years.

2. Creative thinking: the ability to think outside the box, contrary to patterns

The ability to create something new, unconventional - this is how classical psychology defines the concept of "creative thinking". You should not associate it exclusively with art: extraordinary solutions are welcome in any field of activity, be it acting or mobile application development.

At the age of 5-7 years, thinking is not constrained by stereotypes and it is easier for a child to learn to be “creative”. This will help in the future to get out of any difficult situations, simply connecting creative thinking.

See also: 10 ideas and exercises to develop creativity.

The ability to think outside the box is useful not only in everyday life. For example, engineer and ornithologist Eiji Nakatsu developed a rounded nose for a bullet train. The idea came from observing the kingfisher, a bird whose streamlined beak allows it to fish easily, plunging into the water without splashing. This train design reduced air resistance and energy costs.

3. The ability to think logically: we develop logical and mathematical intelligence

Some everyday and educational problems can be solved creatively. But in most cases, when an objective, balanced approach is needed, creativity is not enough. Logical thinking comes to the rescue:

• ability to think;
• prove the truth or falsity of judgments;
• make informed decisions;
• explain your position to yourself and others.

When a child pumps logical thinking and mathematical abilities, he learns to use specific concepts, "weigh" options and make decisions.

Solving entertaining logic problems is a proven way to develop logic in preschoolers and younger students. Is your child 5-7 years old? This is the perfect time to start.

Day after day, more than 100,000 students

complete 10-20 assignments on the LogicLike website. And how much can you? Choose where to start:

Riddles and questions Riddles and questions

Logic tasks Logic tasks

Children with developed logical and mathematical intelligence can easily cope with school mathematics. In grades 3-4, they win mathematical olympiads and, in general, have more chances for a breakthrough in overall intellectual development.

4. Spatial thinking and imagination: developing visual-spatial intelligence

It is possible to create 3D pictures in your head, look at them in great detail and rotate them as you like with the help of spatial thinking and imagination. By developing these abilities, the child learns to navigate in space, recognize directions of movement, determine the sides of the horizon, understand the position of objects in space and perceive their shape.

This is interesting: Games and tasks for the development of spatial thinking of preschoolers.

Universal skills for success in any endeavors

The ability and desire to learn, creative, logical-mathematical and spatial thinking are components of the intellect and are absolutely necessary for both children and adults. However, this is not enough to achieve success.

Special, "hard" skills (hard skills) affect a person's success in a particular activity. They, too, can and should be developed from childhood, especially if the child has obvious inclinations and interests.

What can determine the success of a person in a variety of activities? General, "flexible" skills (soft skills) : the ability to learn, think outside the box, speak beautifully and correctly, correctly allocate time, etc. It is equally useful in study, work and personal affairs. “Soft” skills are the basis for the development of special skills and human efficiency in everything.

We have identified 4 universal skills, qualities (their groups) that will definitely be useful to your child at school and later in life.

5. Communication skills: the ability to communicate and speak in public

The ability to conduct a dialogue, negotiate, convince somewhere, and give in somewhere, helps to join the team and find a common language with any person. A sociable person is more likely to reveal his abilities and succeed than someone who is stuck in communication.

6. Ability to work with information

When the information in the head is not sorted out, but falls into a heap, it is much more difficult to find and use something valuable.

For effective work and study, it is important to be able to:

• evaluate information for accuracy and reliability;
• to sift out the superfluous and empty, to highlight the main thing;
• combine elements into semantic groups;
• memorize and find the right information in time.

"Who owns the information, he owns the world."
Nathan Rothschild

7. Self-organization, time management

Sometimes it seems that a person's life is organized by circumstances. School drives into the framework of lessons for 45 minutes, work creates the boundaries of an 8-10-hour working day.

But without the ability to plan things and manage your time, it is difficult to be productive. This is something that is not taught in school, but without which it is difficult to do without in life.

“I’ve been thinking about how to kill time more than once!” said Alice from Lewis Carroll's fairy tale to the Hatter. He answered her:

“How can he (time) like this? If you didn’t quarrel with him, you could ask him for anything you want.

8. Personal qualities: leadership, will, perseverance

Purposeful, stress-resistant, responsible, proactive, hardworking, able to cope with routine tasks - like a torn line from a resume of a top specialist, isn't it? All these qualities are classified as soft skills. They are not related to a specific profession, but without them any work is difficult.

Personal qualities are formed in childhood and depend on upbringing. It is important in this regard to correctly “distribute responsibilities” between the school and parents.

Abilities and skills open up a world of possibilities for the child

It all starts with the discovery of the inclinations laid down by nature, which are easiest to develop into abilities. But without effort, even rich inclinations run the risk of remaining in the stage of unsprouted grains.

A vivid example is in the biography of the Russian painter Vasily Surikov. His inclinations for drawing appeared early, but by the time he entered the art academy, they were not developed to a sufficient degree, according to teachers.

“Is this your work? Yes, for such drawings, you should even be forbidden to walk past the Academy!
, the examiner remarked sternly.

Surikov did not agree, in three months he completed a three-year course with the artist Dyakonov and successfully entered. To make this example even more revealing, imagine that Surikov never discovered his ability to draw.

How do you like it if your child agrees with the school teacher, they say, “well, there are no abilities for mathematics and logic - a humanist”?

At any age, it's not too early and not too late!

In childhood, the potential for the distant future is laid.

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