Important Life Skills to Teach Your Kids at Early Age

Posted On April 8, 2021

Helping your kid develop proper motor skills, cognitive function through nutrition, guidance, and playtime is important in the first couple of years. But what about advanced lessons in life, should they be able to learn them as well during early childhood? The answer is yes. As technology advances, we’re becoming more and more dependent on it while forgetting practical skills.

Kids nowadays are better equipped with knowledge on how to set their social app account than to make their own breakfast or manage their time alone or do anything else of that sort. You as a parent should be inclined to teach them about the importance of these practical skills instead of buying them new toys, smartphones, and other popular technological advancements.

At What Age is it Best to Start?

When it comes to teaching your child about daily chores, time management, creating a work habit, and other practical skills that will help them later in life it’s never too early to start. This doesn’t mean that you should be teaching your baby infant to do laundry of course.

But as soon as they are ready to absorb and understand this type of information you should start talking about life skills. This is usually a period when the child is 5 years old at least. So what are the important life lessons and life skills for kids that they should learn early on? Here are some examples and suggestion.

Hygiene

When we tell our kids to wash their teeth or remove the dirty clothes from their room, we often forget to explain why they should do this. Once they understand the importance of maintaining a routine and preserving their health by paying attention to hygiene, you won’t be inclined to remind them every time. So start by talking to them about the importance of hygiene and how to organize in such way that this doesn’t become a thing to be lazy about.

It’s never too early to start this topic and you should use every tool that you can to show them why it’s so important. Show them a funny video, YouTube has plenty of those, buy them a book or two about hygiene, etc. Step by step, word after word, they will understand that they are responsible for their own health and this is a powerful lesson that they’ll appreciate later on in life. And finally, be sure to have fun while doing so.

Remember that kids learn best while playing or having fun. If you make it into a serious talk you won’t tell them much as they won’t listen very well. So be playful and creative while explaining cavity, toothache and other health problems.

Time Management

One of the most important life skills for children that you should teach your own early on is definitely time management. Not only that they’ll become more organized and develop their work habit with ease, but they’ll also learn to appreciate their spare time. Start by teaching them how the clock works even though they aren’t quite there yet with lessons.

Explain the importance of time and teach them how to manage it in a way that they feel that they’ve accomplished something productive during the day. Start by letting them organize and see how that works out. In time you will correct them and balance the hours that they’ve intended for certain actions.

Be sure to involve playtime into their schedule. Kids need to socialize as well, so implement that as well into their day to day routine. Don’t worry, they won’t be organized to that extent that they forget about the joy of life and stop enjoying their play time. Kids love to play and no matter how hard you try to organize them they will always lean towards enjoyment.

Preparing a Meal

Among other things to teach kids, preparing their own meal is quite essential to learn early on. As most kids nowadays know how to use phones, tablets, and other gadgets, very few of that percentage knows how to make their own breakfast for example. Don’t hesitate to start talking about this even though it might involve using cutlery, stove, and basics of cooking. It’s not that complex, and if it does prove to be they could always learn how to make a sandwich or something as simple as that.

Start from basic things like how to hold a spoon or a fork, then work your way toward teaching them how to cut bread or other groceries in order to prepare their meal. Having a kid that knows how to put some butter on a toast and fix a plate is far better than having to do that every morning, day after day. Of course, you’ll still be in charge or cooking, but at least they’ll help a bit by giving you’re a day off sometimes.

Work Routine

As your child reaches a period when they start going to school, you should teach them about work habit. This one is quite important, so plan your approach and speech carefully. Again, they need to understand that play time is one thing and studying and doing homework is entirely different thing.

The day is long, and there’s plenty of time to organize. You can make a small sheet in which they’ll write their daily activities and organize their time according to their little planner. After a while, they won’t need it as they’ll start organizing their day spontaneously. It’s important that they have privacy so make sure that they aren’t disturbed while studying, doing homework or performing any other activity of that sort.

To Conclude

All of the lessons above are merely a suggestion on what you can teach your child regarding life skills. There is no particular order of things to teach except that which is logical to teach a kid. What’s great about teaching them life skills and life lessons early on is that you can stretch lessons throughout a couple of days, even weeks. Divide each lesson into segments, so that they absorb the most of information that and topics that you cover. This way you’ll prepare them for the life ahead before they even group up.

Author: Catherine Evans

Catherine is a writer from Canada who simply loves toys, collectibles and superhero figurines. Writing is her passion, but she also loves reading, enjoying her “me time” and finding new ways to improve her work and ways to entertain the readers.

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