Life skills you need to teach your children

Armor your children with these life skills. Help them lead strong and independent lives.

The competition in this modern world is pretty fierce and as a parent you would naturally want your children to grow into all-rounder. Your children get all the theoretical knowledge from their schools but they also require other life lessons to become independent individuals you want them to be. Unlike how we were as children, children these days have taken a speed pill on learning everything early on, mostly technology related things. Besides these skills, there are other life skills your children need to learn. Here is a list of some of the life skills your children may need to learn which might come handy in future.

 

Cooking

Food being one of the basic necessities, teaching your children how to cook is an important life skill. Basic cooking skills can be instilled when they as young as five years old. It would be safe to start by teaching simple and basic things such as boiling water and progress later into preparing meals. Maybe teach three to four recipes a month, or whatever is within your children’s comfort zone and interest.

 

Dining Etiquettes

Knowing how to cook is great but couple that with good eating etiquettes and it will be akin to putting the icing on the cake. “Dining manners aren’t taught anywhere in Nepal, neither at schools nor at home, say Mridula Saria and Ayushi Kedia co-founders of Grooming Tales*. These skills make the children confident while at the dining table. Furthermore, the children can learn to differentiate the use of different types of spoons, knives and forks.

 

Tools

Children should know how to use everyday tools such as needles, hammers etc. Children get curious about these tools at a certain age. Grab on to this opportunity and teach them when they are interested. Imagine that a button on your child’s favorite shirt is out, and you aren’t around to fix it, or that nail is dangerously poking out and would scratch or bore a hole on their clothes. Teach the children how to fix these simple problems will make them more independent in the future.

 

First Aid

First aid is probably one of the most important skills children need to learn. Without doubt, children are very active and prone to accidents, you must teach them about safety and first aid. Start off with small things like band aids and move up to medicines and other tools in the first aid box.

 

Money Management

The world is becoming increasingly expensive place; and, money is on the forefront of everyone’s mind. Children are always demanding this or that, so you need to plant the habit of savings early as when they are of age four. Teach your children about savings in a fun way by introducing piggybanks, or opening up a bank account. You can reward them with small amounts of money when they complete a task, and they can save that reward money. This way you can instill the value of saving money in their mind in a fun way.

 

Gardening

This major complaint Saria and Kedia, at Grooming Tales is that the children increasingly spend more time in front of the TV than elsewhere. They say that gardening is one a perfect answer to this problem. Not only are you reducing their time in front of the TV, but also teaching where and how the food they eat come from. Gardening also teaches them of taking care of the plants by themselves which invoke the feeling of responsibility.

 

Ride a Bicycle

Learning to ride a bike is one of those skills better taught and learnt when children are young. Riding bicycle is also a good form of exercise, a chance to get them out of their rooms, and an opportunity to bond with your children. Most parents think this is an opportunity they cannot undertake as they are out working during much of the day, but 2 - 3 hours on the weekends (or the weekdays if possible) isn’t asking much if you want to be with your children, and get a few good laughs from the experience.

 

Swimming

Swimming is one of the survival skills that we all need to learn and it is also of the best form of exercise, and that keeps the children outdoors. Here the mantra should be: the earlier the children learn swimming, the better. Familiarize your children with the pool when they are seven or eight months, and teach them to swim at around the age of three or four years old. You can use different varieties of floats with favorite cartoon characters to lure the children who are reluctant to get in the pool. But you should not forget to supervise your children until they are good swimmers.