5 Life Skills Your Child Must Develop

Your child acquires several skills from infancy to adulthood. Some of these skills come
naturally, some they need to learn and develop. Life skills refer to the skills that your child
must have to handle everyday challenges and make the most out of life. Children can learn
these skills through conscious efforts or by experiencing them.
Here are 5 skills your children must know to navigate their way through life smoothly and
confidently:

1. Cooking
There is no doubt that home-cooked food is the best way towards a healthy lifestyle.
However, as children fly out of the nest for higher studies or a job, they start relying on fast
foods and restaurant meals. This adversely impacts their health. If your children know
cooking, they can easily manage to prepare their own meals.
The key to developing cooking skills in your children is to involve them at an early age. Take
them to the market to pick fruits and vegetables, seek their help in the kitchen in chores
such as cutting vegetables, help them understand the spices, etc. As children grow old
enough to handle the gas stove and take due precautions, teach them the basic recipes such
as egg omelette, poha, upma, dal-chawal, sabzis, etc. Once they get a basic sense of cooking
and spices, they can easily look up any recipe on the internet and try their hands on it.

2. Swimming
There are hardly any children who don’t enjoy some fun in the water!
It is a known fact that swimming is one of the best exercises to improve cardiac and
respiratory health. It also keeps your children physically and mentally fit. It also aids in
increasing their stamina and flexibility. But, most importantly, swimming is a life-saving skill.
If your children know swimming, they can save their life and of others too during some
unforeseen tragedy in a swimming pool or any other water body.
Make your kids join swimming classes. Children can start taking swimming lessons as early
as age 1.

3. Driving
While there is no dearth of means of transportation these days, driving as a life skill can give
a sense of independence. It especially comes in handy during emergencies when you need
to drive yourself or someone from one place to another in absence of any transport service.
The legal age to start driving in India is 18 years. So as soon as your children attain that age,
teach them to drive.

4. Money Management
Your children will eventually need to manage finances when they start earning. Why not
inculcate money management skills in them from an early age? It will teach them the
importance of money and concepts such as spending, savings, income, expenses, etc.
You can open a minor savings account in a bank in their name and show them how to
operate it. You can take them to ATM and show them how it is operated. You can teach
them to fill a cheque book. You can take them along with you to a bank. If they have their
personal phone, you can give them money in their digital wallet. Pocket money is also a
good way to start money management habits in children.

5. Decision-Making
As a parent, it is natural for you to make decisions on their behalf. You think that you know
what is right for them. However, this may go against them as they grow older. They might
lose confidence in deciding something for themselves. On the contrary, decision-making
skills help them to learn about problem-solving and critical thinking.
You can teach decision-making in children by letting them make choices. It could be as
simple as taking their opinion on where to travel, which dress to buy, which hobby class
they want to attend, etc. Expose them more frequently to real-world problems rather than
shielding them every moment. Be open to let them make mistakes in their decisions. That’s
because they will learn from their mistakes and become better decision-makers.

Are there any other life skills you would like to add to this list?