3 Life Skills You Can Teach Your Child

What life skills are important to you? Do you take the extra effort to impact your kids? Here is a story from Victor Asemota that shows how important this could be for their development in this tweet he shared.

“I carelessly mentioned that I won a reading competition in primary school, and my son decided that reading was going to be his thing. He reads so much now that his teachers are worried. He uses his break time to read in their library. I am happy and also worried. He also needs social skills too. He decided to start a book club with his friends, and they had their first meeting over the weekend. When kids are young, all they want to be is like their parents. This is why parenting is not a joke. You are shaping lives permanently”

When someone asked him to teach his son about technology, here was his response:

“That is not his problem, he was exposed at birth”

Popularly known as Big Chief, Victor is a serial entrepreneur and investor in Africa. He is passionate about the growth of the African tech space. As a father, however, he wants to make sure he sets examples for his kids and teaches them life skills. Here are three life skills you can teach your child.

Reading

Contrary to popular belief, reading is not just for bookworms or nerds (if you are fond of calling people who read a lot and wear glasses nerds, then you should look up nerd in the dictionary. There is a little surprise for you).

Reading helps your child discover the world and learn a lot on their own. Knowledge gained through personal research sticks more, and your kid does feel like they are working. They can also use reading to develop their creativity and imagination. As they imagine the words come to life, they develop their critical thinking skills.

Finally, reading also helps kids develop their vocabulary and communicate better.

Making Connection

We learn by building patterns from the things around us. By building patterns, children can learn to understand the world. Parents' job is to help kids make simple connections from the things around them.

These include simple things like choosing clothes for different weather and occasions. You can also encourage them to match real life items to the ones they have seen in books. Periodic vacations and visits to historical sites can also spark their abilities to connect things together.

Finally, stories also help kids connect to their environment better.

Communication

Humans are created to be social. That means we must communicate. While the urge to communicate will come naturally to some kids, some others would have to be encouraged.

You can teach your kids how to listen, read social cues and behave appropriately. They can also learn how to communicate their needs, wants and ideas. Practicing these skills with adults will help them become better at it when talking to their equals. When they do this, they improve their communication skills and are better suited to the surroundings.

There are numerous skills that parents can teach their kids. You want your children to become functional members of society. To achieve this, they need to be well versed in all the areas that are relevant. Outside these three we have mentioned, there are a lot more skills to be taught. These include critical thinking, taking challenges and engaged learning. Always make sure to track your child’s progress along these lines.