It’s never too early to start teaching your children essential life skills. In fact, the earlier you start, the easier it will be for them to learn and the better the lessons will stick. Today, we’ve rounded up 17 essential soft and hard skills that every child can start learning as soon as they’re old enough to understand.
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking teaches kids how to think rationally and figure out the logical connection between two or more ideas. Learning this starts in childhood and continues into adulthood and beyond.
Divergent Thinking
Divergent thinking is different from critical thinking and involves creating many different ideas by exploring all possible solutions. This encourages original over conventional thought and teaches your kids to be creative problem solvers.
Perspective Taking
When they are young, kids may struggle to take other people’s perspectives and have empathy for them. While some of this will develop with time as they move through the stages of childhood, it’s never too early to prompt them to consider other people’s thoughts and feelings.
Self-Motivation
Little kids often do things just because adults say they should. Work with them to encourage open-ended play and other scenarios where they make the choices and decide what they want to do and why.
Goal Setting
Setting goals, and working out a plan to achieve those goals, is an essential life skill. Kids should start with simple and immediate goals: making a fingerpainting of the family dog, saving up enough allowance to get a candy bar, etc. and then move on to bigger, more complex goals that will take time to achieve.
Decision Making
Making decisions takes practice so get them started young. Begin with simple decisions that you help guide, such as letting them choose between two pairs of toddler girl shoes (vs. all the shoes in their closet). Over time, you can make the choices more and more open-ended until they are making decisions all on their own.
Spending Time Alone
Many kids these days are constantly monitored and overstimulated, so they have no idea how to spend time by themselves or how to rest. Make sure that your kid has a healthy amount of unstructured free time where they can
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