4 Essential Life Skills to Learn Early for a Solid Future

Teaching children to accept challenges

A child is often afraid of accepting challenges when they realize two things:

– They may be criticized and not recognized.

– They may experience negative emotions such as sadness, boredom.

To help children overcome their fears, parents should help them understand that when they accept a challenge, it means they are happy to experience it. Participating in challenges can either lead to success or failure. But if they don’t accept the challenge, there is no opportunity to understand both.

While playing games, parents should not make it easy or let the child win, but play fair so that the child can experience both success and failure. If the child is sad because of failure, encourage them with words of effort.

When the child is happy with their achievements, praise them for their effort.

Use a positive attitude and focus on problem-solving. But be fair, if the child makes a mistake, acknowledge it and help them admit it.

Teaching children to be self-sufficient

From a young age, children need to learn how to take care of themselves. Parents should give children the opportunity to do things on their own. Teach children skills such as dressing themselves, making their beds in the morning, putting on shoes, storing shoes, sitting at a table and eating, etc.

When starting to teach children these skills, parents may need some simple clues for children to follow. For example, they need to put their shoes away when they come home, pull the chair and sit at the table for a meal, put dirty clothes in the laundry basket, etc. When children become proficient in these skills, they will handle them like habits.

Teaching children focus and self-control

Technology is increasingly developing, so there are many things that distract us such as an image, a video, a phone message, etc. Therefore, young children also have to face more challenges to find focus for themselves. To help children develop this skill, parents should create quiet spaces in life for children to enjoy.

For example, designate areas in the house where there are no electronic devices (applied to all family members), enjoy time together and focus on current communication such as walking and talking about things seen and heard.

Parents should separate children from the virtual world or technology and help them find interesting things in life. To do this, parents themselves need to do the same, manage their own screen time.

Teaching children to help others and do household chores

All children need to be taught that every member of the family needs to be responsible for the cleanliness, comfort, and orderliness of the home. Children need to be taught that they can do household chores that are within their capabilities, not pushing all responsibilities onto adults. The important thing here is the child’s thinking.

If the child realizes their responsibilities, they will have a sense of ownership of the house. But if the child believes it is someone else’s responsibility, even if there are damaged items or a messy house, the child would not care.

Children should also be taught about sharing love. Joy can be shared with many people, just like a cake can be cut into small pieces for everyone to enjoy. Children should learn this from a young age because only when they know how to love, they will feel complete in life. It starts with the thought because it is essential to nurture action.