Teaching your teenagers life skills is essential for building independence and, ultimately, setting them up for a happy and successful future.
While a school education undoubtedly provides a great academic foundation when it comes to choosing a career path, as well as giving them the opportunity to begin building social skills, it doesn’t always provide them with the socio-emotional tools they need to be able to move forward with purpose and flourish. Self and social awareness, responsibility and decision making are all important things to have up their sleeves to build meaningful relationships and carve out a healthy and fulfilling life.
Adolescence can be a difficult period to navigate, but it’s a formative time at which learning the skills they need to cope with the challenges of adulthood can make all the difference to their development and place them in a good position when it’s time to head off to university or fly the nest to begin their careers.
From cooking healthy meals and managing money effectively to overcoming obstacles, coping with failure and having healthy relationships, many teenagers leave home without any idea how to do any of these things and are forced to learn from their mistakes – but what if you could save them some of the headache, and heartbreak?
As a parent, it’s natural to want to do so, and a kid’s credit card and apps to that end can go a long way, but there’s nothing quite like spending one-on-one time with them and showing or explaining to them how it’s all done. If you’re wondering where to start, then here are some of the basic life skills to start equipping your teenager with now – they’re almost guaranteed to thank you for doing so later.
Money management
Being able to manage money effectively is an essential skill for long term security and ultimately, happiness. Even for those with a sizable bank account or a large monthly allowance, this is key, because thinking that money is endless is a sure-fire way for them to end up overspending and potentially landing themselves in debt when they leave home.
Allowing them to manage their allowance themselves while they’re still living in the family fold is a great way to get the ball rolling and setting this as a fixed amount each month will instil in them the fact that it is not never-ending and thus, that they must spend it wisely, rather than splurging impulsively on designer goods and leaving themselves nothing to go out and have fun with – or vice versa.
Sit down with them once a month and ask them what they’d like to do over the coming months and if there’s anything they want or need. Then, show them how to budget their money accordingly, and ensure that they understand the importance of putting aside some of their income into savings each month – as well as investments later on. Once they reach the age of 18, it’s also vital to show them how to use credit cards to their advantage – rather than leaving them to go it alone and potentially rack up thousands in unnecessary debt.
Cooking basic, nutritious meals
You might have a private chef preparing meals for the family at home, but when they go away to university or move into their own home this is unlikely to be the case. With this in mind, it’s important to educate them about what a healthy, balanced diet entails and how to prepare simple, tasty meals themselves so that they don’t rely on processed, packaged convenience foods.
This can actually be one of the most enjoyable life skills to teach your children, and can provide a welcome opportunity to spend some one-on-one time together. Invite them to help you prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner, and sit down with them to choose some new recipes they’d like to try to get them excited about it. You could even ask them to take responsibility for cooking a meal for the family once a week to practice, although make sure you’re on hand to help them should they need you.
Overcoming obstacles
Problem-solving is a key life skill that everyone needs in their repertoire, and this doesn’t just apply to the context of maths equations. When you’re a child, it often feels like your parents can fix any problems you have for you, so it can be a rude awakening to realise later in life that this is no longer the case – and preparing them to be able to manage difficult situations on their own will mean they know what to do when a challenge arises, or at least where to start.
It’s also vital for them to go into adult life with the tools they need to cope with failure. Not seeing success at something like a job interview later in life can feel like a huge blow to their confidence, so show them from a younger age that it’s OK to fail and highlight the opportunities to learn from doing so so that they know it doesn’t have to mean end game.
Praise them for their efforts when things go wrong for them, and help them to understand what they could do differently should the situation arise again. Almost nobody is successful in life without failing a few times first, and this is an important learning moment for everyone.
Other life skills
Of course, these examples of life skills worth teaching your teen are just for starters, and there are a host of others to consider that span the practical as well as the emotional. From taking care of the home to making better decisions, the list is endless – but spending some time on setting them up to adult life, however you choose to do it, will place them in a great position when they do eventually fly the nest, and give you peace of mind that they’ll be able to cope when going it alone.
