Life skills refer to adaptive behaviours that help us to live our daily life effectively. The range of life skills is quite extensive because it includes everything that can improve your regular activities like reading, counting, differentiating things, or organising items. Such skills cannot only be taught in a school classroom; parents need to include the learning of life skills as part of the upbringing of their children. There are many ways to teach life skills, but the ones that work best are the ones that engage the children in an activity. So here is a list of some activities that you can use to teach your children life skills:
1. Making Lists
Just like adults make lists for all kinds of tasks or while planning for a big event, children can learn to make lists to classify things according to their uses or according to their value. It helps children learn how to organise things. For example, the book ‘Tips and Tricks for Teaching Your Kids Valuable Skills’ by Will Braingames has some pictures of different areas to make lists. There is a picture of a kitchen with many items, and children have to make a list of all the things in the kitchen and then write their uses in front of them. An advanced version of the activity will require the children to remake the list several lists in different ways. The items in the kitchen can be enlisted according to their price, size, colour, etc. The idea is to help children learn to categorise things according to a given criterion, and making lists is the best way to do it.
2. Role Play
Children like role-playing by default. It's because their prime method of learning in the early years is 'modelling.' Modelling means that you teach how something is done by demonstrating it. Parents are modelling everyday activities even when they don't realise that they are doing them. Children observe their parents and teachers and imitate them. Since it's their first time doing something, it is imperative to teach them how to do it right, or else they will be habituated to do it in an undesired fashion. This goes for all daily activities, from how you brush your teeth or how you pack your bag to how you clean things up before going to bed.Role-play is one of the best ways to teach life skills because it is modelling done consciously. When you say to your children that we will play teacher and student, you are modelling how to be a good teacher or become a good student. It also shows how the child sees a teacher be and how you can change that perception if required. 3. Songs And Dances Children like to sing and listen to songs. They also have a natural urge to dance on every tiny bit of joy they receive. It's one thing that is common with all children throughout the world.
The love for music and dance can teach skills by including the lessons in the rhymes. For example, you can write a song about the steps to make the bed after getting up and then sing it every morning while making the bed. The children will follow up on the singing first and then on the bed-making task. ‘Tips and Tricks for Teaching Your Kids Valuable Skills’ by Will Braingames also mentions how you can use songs to teach essential skills. You can first observe which songs your children like the most and then change the lyrics just a bit to include what you can help your children learn. They will start singing your version of the song daily and remind themselves of the lesson, remembering it forever.
4. Games
There are many popular games like Ludo, Monopoly, and Scrabble that are effective for learning. It would be best if you tried to take out some time to play these games with your children. Simple games like Ludo help the children learn about basic arithmetic when quickly summing the dots for the total. Monopoly helps children learn about money handling and how trade is made. Scrabble builds children's vocabulary very quickly.
Now, just playing these games will not automatically make them skilled at these tasks. It's your responsibility to relate all the activities in the games to daily life applications. When they connect the two things, they can learn on their own every time they play the games.
5. Divergent Thinking
Children are intelligent when they are born; it is true that overburdening them with information reduces their intelligence and critical thinking skills. To polish their existing thinking capabilities, you need to understand the magic of divergent thinking.There are two ways to think about anything. In convergent thinking, you try to find the one right solution to a problem. The opposite is divergent thinking, in which you try to discover many possible answers or solutions to a problem. Divergent thinking leads to new possibilities and ways to do things that were not considered before. Interestingly, children are better
at divergent thinking than adults; that's why they need to be encouraged to develop their divergent thinking skills. If you ask them to come up with ten ways to use a rope to do something, they will surprise you with twenty more – while you would end the list at five. This exercise can develop thinking skills that would help them find a way to solve any problem before them without worrying about it or calling someone else to solve their problems every time.
6. Storytelling
Children are always excited about listening to stories or reading them. It’s one of the best ways for children to learn lessons of life skills and ethics at the same time.In addition to making stories available to your children, you should also discuss the stories and characters with your children. When you ask them why, how, when, and where the characters did something, you will see how the stories impact your child. To keep things on track, you should read these stories aloud to them and discuss the lessons in the story on the go.
The children's mind is like a sponge; it will absorb anything you throw at it. So make sure you only feed them the suitable lessons of life that will build them a conscientious and balanced personality.
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