Life passes by quickly. Before you know it, your little ones will grow up into adults with a life of their own. And when they do, you would want them to be ready for life. Education gives your children the knowledge they need about different subjects, but it does not necessarily equip them with essential life skills.
MomJunction takes you through the list of a few basic life skills your teenagers should know before they leave the nest and how parents can help children acquire these skills.
Essential Life Skills For Teens
Life is full of surprises, both pleasant and unpleasant. To make your child ready to face anything in life, you should help them acquire these basic life skills as a youth.
1. Money or Budgeting Skills
Money may not be the most important thing in life, but it certainly is vital for a comfortable life. That is why financial discipline is an important skill to learn as a teenager.
Budgeting skills help teenagers learn the value of money, conscious spending, as well as planning for the future.
2. Cooking or Food Skills
Knowing how to procure food or cook food is one of the primary life skills for teenagers. Teach them the below basic food skills so that they can survive in any part of the world.
3. Dress Sense or Clothing Skills
Your teenagers might change their style completely owing to external influences, but the chances are they may get influenced by the wrong people. So, here is how they get one of the everyday skills right.
4. Personal Grooming
Grooming is a skill that children need to learn early on. Personal grooming is important to stay healthy and also have a good social or romantic life.
5. Cleanliness and Hygiene
Cleanliness is one of the tenets of hygiene. Teach your children to keep themselves as well as their surroundings clean and tidy.
6. Personal Healthcare and Basic First Aid
Among the critical things that teens should learn, as part of taking care of themselves, is to take care of their health.
7. Social Skills And Manners
Teaching your child skills and manners that they would display in a social setting is essential for them to have a smooth social life.
8. Organization skills
Lack of organization is one of the factors that lead to poor time management. A poorly organized person is almost always searching for something.
9. Domestic Skills – Managing A Home
Imagine your pampered little child finally finishes college and starts a life of their own. But they might hate every moment of it if they do not know the basic home management skills. It is better if all teenagers learn these life skills early on.
10. Driving and Auto Maintenance Skills
Driving is one of the most important life skills for teenagers to be self-dependent. But knowing how to drive a car is not enough. Your teenager should also know about road safety, auto care, and what to do when there is vehicle trouble.
11. Navigational Skills
Basic navigational skills are more important so that even if they do not have a car, they will be able to travel from one place to another.
12. Communication Skills
Communication may seem more like a business skill. But think about it, won’t your teenager need to communicate in his personal life? Teaching your teen how to get his or her message across without offending another person is important. Communication is a critical skill that your teenager will need to master for interpersonal relationships in personal and professional lives.
13. Behavioral Skills
The character of an individual shows in the way they behave. Help your teenager build a strong personality by helping them develop healthy behaviour. Here are a few basic things you could consider teaching them.
14. Skills to Stay Safe:
When your teenage children are out in the world all by themselves, it is important to know how to stay safe. In fact, staying safe is one of the most important life skills for teenagers. Here are a few pointers that might help your teen to stay safe on the physical plane as well as the virtual plane (online).
15. Coping with Emotions
Teaching teens to cope with emotions will allow them to see both sides of a situation. Coping and self-management skills that you could teach your teenagers are mentioned next.
16. Problem-solving Skills
Among the main life skills for youth is problem-solving. You cannot expect your children to come back to you for help every time they have a problem. What you could do is teach them to deal with problems like mature adults.
17. Basic Educational Skills
Education is essential for living a comfortable and healthy life. There is no dispute about it. Your children would have learned to read, write, and speak at home. But they might also need to know how to use a computer, a phone, and other gadgets.
18. Goal Setting – Knowing how to prioritize
Teach your children to identify their skills and set goals that can give them personal gratification as well as professional success.
19. Time Management
How often have you heard your teenager complain about not having enough time to do all that they want to? We all have 24 hours in a day. How we manage, it makes a world of difference in what we achieve.
20. Decision-making Skills
Your teenager will have to make decisions, make a choice at every step of their adult life. From something as simple as what to eat for dinner to making a significant career move or marrying a person they love, everything is a decision.
21. Employability Skills
To be employable or be noticed by potential employers, a person needs to have more than just credentials on the wall. Here are a few skills you may encourage your teenager to develop for better career opportunities.
These are only a few among the list of life skills for teenagers they need to learn before beginning the journey as an adult. The key to a happy life is to sustain two key skills – the willingness and ability to learn new things, unlearn skills that are not useful and relearn them with a new perspective. Agreed that teaching life skills to teenagers is not easy, but if you can do that, you will have done justice to your job as a parent.
What life skills do you think teens should learn? Share your views about it in our comments section.