Are they any skills that adult life forced you to learn the hard way, that you wished someone would have taught you when you were younger? No, we are not talking about taxes or making the perfect puff pastry but important life skills that for some reason seemed to be looked over through the learning and development stage throughout childhood. So, what are life skills exactly?
Well, life skills are techniques and practices that help you manage and deal with the daily experiences of normal life. Life skills are not a universal set of rules and usually differ from culture to culture and ultimately depend on the society we live in. We learn these skills from friends, social institutions, and mainly our family.
Let’s delve into some very important life skills that should be taught to our children.
1) Communicating our feelings in an adequate manner.
Managing our feelings can be overwhelming especially if these have been suppressed and not handled well. Teaching children the importance of expressing their emotions will prepare them for any negative emotions they will experience and also help them express their feelings to others in a calm appropriate manner. Using journals to express emotions can be very helpful for children and even having a family dinner where all issues are discussed openly and in a non-judgemental space.
2)Handling rejection/failure
Unfortunately, we cannot protect our children from failing at some point or another, and nor can we project them from the painful feelings of rejection. These are a part of life. The point is to prepare them for these negative experiences and explain to them that these happen to everyone and shouldn’t be determining factors for future attempts. Share your experiences of rejection and failure. If they fail an exam, tell them about the time you failed an exam and the feelings you felt.
3) Acceptance towards different cultures, races, and social classes.
Expose your children to different cultures. Teach them that although people come from different places this does not mean we are different from them or in any way better. Talk to children about racial diversity and ask about the children that they go to school with and where they are from. Be positive about different cultures and teach children the beauty that every culture has.
We hope you enjoyed this blog on some basic life skills. Remember that the most important thing for children to see is the way you behave. Practice what you preach and set an example for your children.
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