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.

65 Life Skills to Teach Kids at Every Age | MommyPoppins

We were about half a day into the great pandemic-induced homeschool experiment of 2020 when I lost my cool for the first time. With a full-time work schedule for my husband and myself, plus three kids to teach, how exactly were we going to manage?

I worried about workspace, bandwidth (both our Wi-Fi connection and my own), and common core math problems. And then, I decided to sort of... give up. Sure, we'll do our best to keep up with the schoolwork of three kids in two schools in three vastly different stages of their educational journeys, but we'll also focus on some good, old-fashioned life skills.

Day 1 found me schooling my son on how to make his teen-diet staple, ramen noodles, and a home ec class full of chocolate chip cookies for my younger daughters. I mostly stayed back, and let my girls do the measuring and mixing that I typically like to micromanage. On Day 2 we sewed up the holes in some favorite stuffed animals. By Day 3, my youngest was eagerly awaiting the day's lesson, and that inspired me to reach out to colleagues and friends to put together this list of life skills. Of course, most of these essential skills are worth teaching kids at any time but it feels apt during this forced slowdown. Without further ado, 65 real-life lessons to teach your kids.

If you're looking for more at-home and indoor Boredom Busters, we have plenty to recommend, including science experiments and crafts.

Life Skills for Toddlers and Preschoolers

1. You're stuck at home for the foreseeable future, so why not take that diaper off to try potty training.

2. Timely, and topical: Teach toddlers how to wash their hands for 20 whole seconds.

3. Even toddlers can learn how to sort toys and clean up.

4. While you're not going anywhere or in a rush, let little ones pick out their wildest outfits and dress themselves!

5. Fill up the watering can and water the plants together.

RELATED: Coronavirus Pandemic Guide for Parents: Hundreds of Activities, Tips, and Resources

Even young kids can help with laundry by trying to match socks. Photo by Sara Marentette

6. Lighten your laundry chores by having kids play "match the socks."

7. Work on learning how to snap, zip, or button jackets.

8. Let them wash their own faces.

9. For preschoolers: Take the time to teach them your phone number and address.

10. Show them how to dial 9-1-1 after discussing what sort of emergency necessitates it.

11. Enjoy the spring air and teach them how to master pedaling a tricycle or bike with training wheels.

A song or even a YouTube video might help kids finally learn to tie their shoes. Photo by Rose Gordon Sala

Life Skills for Early Elementary School Students

12. Make good use of their YouTube obsession by showing them this video that teaches how to tie shoes.

13. Hand over the feather duster and let them chip in with the cleaning.

14. Similarly, teach them to sweep.

Kids as young as kindergarten can wield a vacuum. Photo by Rose Gordon Sala

15. Or, show them how to vacuum.

16. Have them help with dinner prep by setting the table...

17. ...And clean up when it's time to clear the table.

18. Engage them in laundry day by teaching them how to separate the clothes by color.

19. Take the training wheels off and conquer two-wheeled solo bike riding.

20. Teach them how to make a simple sandwich for their lunch ... and yours!

21. Get a little help with garbage duty by teaching them how to take the trash out.

22. Show them how to properly wash the windows or the bathroom mirrors. Most will love to wield the Windex bottle.

Learning a simple stitch will pay off well into the adult years!

23. Share basic sewing skills.

24. Let them fetch the mail.

25. Clear out the piggy bank and roll coins or teach them how to make change. (Bonus math lesson!)

26. Got any analog clocks in your house? Now's the time to learn how to tell time.

27. School them on basic first-aid skills.

Photo by Sara Marentette

28. Set them free with a recipe for no-bake cookies.

29. Let them grate cheese for homemade mac-and-cheese or taco night. Watch those fingertips as they work.

30. Show them how to make a bed.

Photo by Sara Marentette

31. Once the laundry is washed and folded, let the kids put it away.

Life Skills for Tweens

32. Look at a map and teach them how to read it—without the help of Google.

33. Get them a cursive writing book or download some worksheets.

34. Show them how to clean the bathroom, toilets and all.

35. Let them load the dishwasher after dinner.

36. Same goes for the laundry machine! They should be able to take over this chore with some help.

37. Teach them basic kitchen skills using the stove: scrambled eggs are a great place to start. 

38. Another tasty option: grilled cheese.

RELATED: 20+ (Mostly Free) Online Learning Resources, Apps, and Games

A basic cookie dough is easily mastered by kids. Photo by Rose Gordon Sala

39. Set them loose with a basic baking recipe. They might need some help getting it in and out of the oven, but should be able to measure and mix!

40. Set them up with a typing program. Keyboarding Without Tears is offering its program for FREE right now. Typing.com is another FREE online resource.

41. Pen an old-fashioned letter to friends or family, then show them how to add a stamp and mail it.

42. Teach them how to do their own hair: simple braids and ponytails should be easy at this age.

43. Show them how to properly wrap a present.

44. Teach them how to create a calendar or daily schedule and help them stick to it.

45. Stocking up on essentials? Let them handle the money and count the change.

Simple knife skills are a handy skill. Photo by Anne Marceaux

46. Let them learn basic knife skills in the kitchen, cutting soft fruits. Even better if you have a kid-sized knife set.

47. Banks are still open; why not start a savings account for your kid and teach them to make a deposit.

48. Build some STEM skills and teach them to make an iMovie.

49. Put them to work in the yard: rake leaves or mulch, plant flowers, and pull weeds.

50. Show them how to add their events to your shared family calendar, whether it hangs in the hallway or lives on the internet.

Send them to college knowing how to do their own tie.

Life Skills for Teens

51. Teach them how to tie a tie. My son learned on YouTube.

52. By now, they should be able to sort, wash, and fold the laundry.

53. Take a night off: Let them cook a full meal and clean up when they're done.

54. Teach them how to properly iron out wrinkles.

55. Impart some basic car maintenance skills, like how to check the oil and change a tire.

56. Take them to the gas station when you need to fill up and let them do it.

57. Show them how to plunge a clogged toilet.

58. Teach them how to make and stick to a budget.

59. Help them open a checking account.

60. Teach them how to keep track of important papers ... like their new checking account records!

61. School them on how to write a professional email. No shorthand or emojis allowed.

62. Help them craft their first résumé.

63. Have them memorize their social security number.

64. Power up the lawnmower and let your teen tackle the chore.

65. Nearing 18? Make sure they know how to register to vote!

Photos by the author except where noted

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)

8 Skills Preschoolers and Primary Schoolers Can Develop

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;
• to 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 the success of a person 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, soft skills 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.