Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, one of the largest multinational companies in the world, believes that teaching children soft skills is vital for the future. His reason was that soft skills will enable children to become unique so that machines which are getting smarter every day can never catch up with humans.
In today’s fast-paced world where machines are taking over our lives and jobs, parents should take Jack Ma’s words seriously. While there is no doubt that academic and hard/technical skills are also necessary, it is the soft skills which will pave your children’s way towards the path of success.
Here are five soft skills that you must encourage in your children.
- Communication Skills
Your children should have strong written, verbal, non-verbal and listening skills. These communication skills will help your child to express clearly, pay attention to what others are saying without being judgemental, build better relationships and handle conflicts with maturity.
- Problem-Solving
As parents, we often end up coming to the rescue of our children and solving their problems. While we have good intentions at our heart and want to protect our children, this behaviour may do them more harm than good. Let them use their logic, critical thinking and creativity to find answers to their problems. Allow them to explore the problem from all angles before coming to you for advice.
Check out these tips to improve communication skills in your children.
- Teamwork
Your child may be a good solo performer but are they good team players? When they take up a job or run their business in future, they will need to work with other people. Teamwork soft skills will help your children develop trust and respect for others.
Enrol your children in team sports activities such as football, cricket, basketball, etc. Give them shared chores with their siblings or friends.
- Creativity
A plethora of software tools for creating jobs is available these days. However, nothing beats the human mind when it comes to creativity and imagination. Let your children experiment with their ideas and express themselves through art and craft, music, dancing, etc.
- Resilience
Resilience is the ability to adapt to a difficult situation in life and bounce back from it. It can help your children to navigate through unpleasant or stressful situations in life with confidence and empathy. This could be a difficult skill to develop but they can do it with enough encouragement from you. You can teach this skill to your children by demonstrating healthy coping mechanisms, creating a deep emotional connection with them and allowing them to embrace mistakes and learn from them.
Would you like to add any other soft skills to this list?
