Do small children really need to learn life skills?
I am a strong believer in teaching young children life skills early with guidance. As parents we can teach our children how to function in life while walking along side them in the safety of their home. Doing so will help prepare them for situations they will encounter as they grow.
Why is teaching life skills important for young children?
Life skills are skills that everyone will need to learn eventually. When you teach a young child the skills they need in a gentle, repetitive way, they will start to catch on.
It is important to teach life skills while your children are young because they aren’t as set in their bad habits yet. If you wait until your child is a teenager to try and teach important life skills, you may encounter pushback. What parent doesn’t want easier? I know I do. My favorite educator from the 1800’s, Charlotte Mason, has a quote I try to base every day of my parenting on:
“The mother who takes pains to endow her children with good habits secures for herself smooth and easy days; while she who lets their habits take care of themselves has a weary life of endless friction with the children.”
Charlotte Mason
What are the benefits of starting young when teaching life skills?
There are several benefits to teaching your child life skills while they are young!
Your child will learn self-reliance.
They will also learn how to work well with others.
Another great benefit that comes from teaching life skills is the ability to communicate with other people.
When your child starts learning basic life skills they will start picking up on character building.
Character building is an important aspect to growing as a person both young and old. I believe that every day we have the opportunity to build our own characters and help our children strengthen theirs.
Life skills and character building go hand in hand. Where one is, the other will follow.
How can lack of life skills affect your children while they grow?
Lack of life skills while growing up can have an impact on your child. Basic life skills, like being polite and learning how to defend themselves can come in handy when interacting with other people. If your child lacks life skills, there’s a chance they may not understand how to properly interact with other people.
Are children ready to learn life skills?
I believe that children are always ready to learn simple life skills in gentle way.
The key is to make sure you create a habit out of these skills they learn and always do it in a gentle manner, introducing one at a time.
13 Life Skills to Teach Small Children
How to defend themselves
When I say teach them how to defend themselves, I don’t just mean physically. Although, defending yourself physically is definitely an important skill to acquire.
It’s important that a child learns how to advocate for themselves in a way that says “listen, I know I am important, you do not have the right to treat me like your personal punching bag, verbally or physically.”
Decision Making Skills
You may have a child who is a great decision maker, or one who struggles with too many choices.
When my children need to make a decision I talk to them about weighing the pros and cons while also not procrastinating too long on there decision.
Decisions are a huge part of life. Children can start learning how to make affective decisions in a wise manner early on.
I also talk to my children about the consequences, good and bad, of some decisions. For example, if my child decided they were going to hit another child, they would receive a consequence because hitting someone is never okay. I make sure they understand “listen, I don’t like disciplining you, however, you made the decision to hit your sister, which means you chose the consequence of this action.” When a child understands the connection between the decisions they make and the good and bad consequences that follow, they become more away of why and how they make certain decisions.
Money Management
Money management is a life skill that everyone has to learn eventually.
Starting young with money management can help children learn in a safe environment the correct ways to manage their money.
If your child is ready, a great place to start is talking to them about how to earn money, provide opportunities to earn and save money, and figure out what to spend or save their money on.
How to cook simple meals
Sometimes it’s hard to cook with children. Okay, who am I kidding? It’s usually pretty annoying to cook with children.
BUT if your child is ready, you can start by choosing one or two simple meals for your child to learn how to make for lunch or dinner once a week. With guidance they could learn to love cooking and the proper way to handle food, utensils, appliances, etc.
How to work independently
I’m going to be real with you. I do not entertain my children. Yes, I will play with them and read with them. But I do not entertain them every waking minute while they are babies and toddlers for a reason. I want them to learn how to work on something independently without my assistance or constant approval.
Learning to work independently will help your child learn to exist outside of you. Yes, I believe you should always be there to love and encourage your child. This is not what I mean.
For example, my oldest daughter loves to have me sit next to her while she does her school work. 95% of the time I WILL. Because I believe the encouragement that she gets from me while I’m next to her is important. However, there are moments where I need to help her brother or sister and she is more than capable of doing her work independently. So when I ask her to please work independently she does. She is not afraid she can’t do it, because she knows she can. This is what I mean by teaching them to work independently.
Basic chores
One thing I always tell my children is that we ALL live in our home which means it’s EVERYONE’s responsibility to contribute to taking care of it.
Teaching a child how to do chores can be done peacefully. I share some great ideas on how here.
How to be respectful to others
Respect for others. Sometimes this feels like a lost concept. Teaching our children how to be respectful to other people, even if the person is different than them or believes differently than them is more important now than it’s been in a long time.
You can start teaching your child how to be respectful to other people two ways. First, show respect to the people who live in your home (your children and your spouse.) and model respect outside of your home as well. Your children watch your actions more than they listen to your words. When they see you open the door for the elderly woman behind you, let someone go in front of you in line or speak kindly to a person who has a different viewpoint than you, they will start to pick up on how to display respectfulness to other people.
Adaptability
There are many people who do not like change. Children can struggle with being adaptable because they already have control over so little in their lives.
But it is important that young children learn that not everything will be the same all the time, change happens, when that change happens it’s how we react that is important.
Do we go with the flow, learn to adapt to changes or do we dig our heels in and refuse to budge?
Resilience
Failure is a part of life. Some people struggle with resilience because they expect everything to be easy for them. When it’s not easy, they give up.
But what happens when you power through the tough times and keep going? Beautiful opportunities can arise when you continue to be resilient. It’s never too early for children to learn this.
How to clean up after themselves
As soon as my children were old enough, I started to teach them how to clean up after themselves at the dinner table. It was a simple place to start. From there we moved on to cleaning up after themselves when they get things out. Now, they are still children and are not perfect with this however, every day they have opportunities to continue learning how to clean up after themselves.
Why is this important? I want my children to be respectful of other people. It is not respectful to go to someone’s house and leave a mess, expecting someone else to clean it up. The same for our house. It’s not respectful for them to leave a mess for me and their father to clean up, if they are old enough to do it themselves.
One of the first times I went to my husband’s grandparent’s house I jumped up after the meal and helped my in-laws clean up the table and kitchen. I did it automatically because this practice had been ingrained in me from the time I was young. “When you go to someone’s house you help clean it up.” I remember helping clear my mamaw’s table and wash her dishes with my mom every time we went over there. My in-laws looked at me and said “wow, someone really taught you right. You don’t see many young people helping out these days.”
Cleaning up after yourself is simple, easy and shows the person that you respect them.
Basic personal-hygiene
This is simple, children need to learn early how to take care of their bodies. Whether it’s taking care of their teeth, brushing their hair or wearing clean clothes. It’s never too early to teach your child how to care for themselves.
Time- management
Most children have no concept of time. But being able to manage time can help them as they grow. They can become more efficient with what is expected of them to do: chores, school work, etc. And they become more respectful of OTHER people’s time.
How to order at a restaurant
Encouraging your child to order at a restaurant for themselves help them find their own voices. This may seem like something small, but it’s actually this small life skill that can help build confidence in themselves.
An extension of life-skills is working on character training.
Maybe you are thinking, all this character-building is so daunting! How can I fit this into my day intentionally with everything else I have to do?
It doesn’t have to feel overwhelming to focus on character-building. One great way to get started is to pick one specific trait or fruit to focus on with yourself and your child and keep it at the forefront of your mind. Then if you want to start adding specific activities or stories that go along with building this character trait then start slowly! I recommend spending around 1 month focusing intentionally on one character-trait. Then circle back and re-evaluate if you and your children need more time focusing on this specific area.
This year I have decided to focus more intentionally on character-building with my children and myself too. To help me do this I have designed and created monthly character-building and habit-training packs to use with my family and I will be offering them to you as a reader as well!
The first character-building pack I decided to focus on is kindness. I will have 4 packs available for sale, two character-building packs, and 2 habit-training packs. The character-building packs are kindness and diligence. The habit-training packs are obedience and cleanliness. These packs will be launched in the middle of this year!
I also created a freebie just for you! These kindness cards will be a part of the character-training pack, kindness, but you can get them for free today :). You can use these cards in so many different ways, my favorite way (and the way we are using them) is by creating a “kindness jar” to place these cards in and draw one every day or week to do as a family!
Download Your Free Kindness Cards!
Sign Up For The Launch of The Peaceful Nest Character Training Packs!
Don’t miss when these packs come out and be among the first ones to grab them!
You can sign up for the launch, which will take place later this year, and stay up to date on upcoming packs!
Join the waitlist
The Rewards Starting Life Skills When Young
Teaching life skill while young may seem pointless. After all they are kids. But what you are really doing is instilling in your child the confidence to be who God created them to be while also helping them strengthen their own character.
I don’t know about you, but I think that’s an important part of parenting our children!
Related: 14 Best Tips To Overcome Angry Mommy Today
If you are new to the Peaceful Nest Blog, welcome!
Be sure to read my top posts on parenting:
- Why Consistent Parenting Matters
- 12 Habits of Immensely Peaceful Moms
- 63 Mom Hacks That Are Pure Genius
- Connect With Your Child and Build Up Their Heart
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Hi there, I’m Jenna! I am a devoted mommy and wife. As well as an advocate for children and creating a peaceful atmosphere for those we love. I co-wrote Faith Actually: Living Life After Tragedy with my husband. I have my Bachelor’s Degree in Biblical Studies and currently working toward my Master’s in Positive Psychology. My number one desire is to create a peaceful home life for my family. My second desire is to share with you the tips I learn along the way!