12 Life Skills Every Kid Should Master Before High School

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12 Life Skills Every Kid Should Master Before High School
Image: USDA on flickr

Did you know 70% of kids struggle in their adult life, if they lack important life skills?

There is no doubt that kids learn a lot in schools, but there are some important life skills beyond classrooms which every kid should master before leaving high school.

When Amy moved away from home to Chicago for higher studies, she was having a tough time to get an apartment, as every time eating out was too expensive, so she decided to cook her own meal, but she doesn’t have any idea how to cook her meal. every time she had to call her mom to teach her how to cook or laundry.

The main idea behind the story is to teach important life skills to our children to prepare them for real-life challenges.

All these important life skills help kids to become independent and self-sufficient to pursue their main goals in life.

Cultivating these proficiencies in early age improve children’s social interactions, develop reasoning skills, feeling empowered to achieve anything in the world.

Here’s a list of 12 important life skills every kid needs to learn before hitting high school, let’s dive in!

1. Doing Chores

Doing Chores
Image: Roy Luck on flickr

Involving children in daily chores helps to make them responsible, caring, cooperating and sharing work with siblings.

It develops a sense of teamwork among kids and helps them to master these abilities as they are getting ready ahead of high school. Inspire kids to participate in:

  • Cleaning & Dusting
  • Folding laundry & Iron clothes
  • Preparing meal – cleaning and peeling veggies, dishwashing
  • Keeping garden – taking trash, mowing grass & watering plants
  • Feeding pets & taking them for a walk
  • Babysitting for siblings

 

2. Cooking Meal

Cooking Meal
Image: Evelyn Lim on flickr

Cooking a simple meal is the most basic life skill, which helps kids to get healthy food without depending on unhealthy outside foods.

It must be mastered before going to high school. Some basic cooking lessons include:

  • Washing, carefully slicing and chopping veggies
  • Measuring ingredients with scoop & opening can with a can opener
  • Making rice & baking/microwave foods
  • Meshing potatoes with the fork & snap beans
  • Making salads & soups
  • Scrambled eggs & boiling pasta
  • Making simple juices & smoothies

 

3. How to Do Laundry

How to Do Laundry
Image: Heidi on flickr

Easy and simple laundry lessons can be given to children in a step by step manner, mastering these laundry skills will make their life easier in high school and university.

First up, show them a demonstration of how things are done in laundry and then encourage them to follow.

  • Sorting laundry clothes – separating white clothes or dry cleaning cloths
  • Adding detergent & loading washing machine
  • Understanding various settings of the washing machine
  • How to wash clothes by hands & cleaning deep stains
  • Cleaning lint catcher & operating dryer
  • Folding & hanging clothes

 

4. Money Basics

Money Basics
Image: MIKI Yoshihito on flickr

Teaching money basics to children leads to financial independence. Kids can easily become experts in money matters as they learn fast and it will also help them to manage their high school expenses,

Start off by telling them about earnings.

How their parents earn money and how they wisely spent it on basic needs, making the budget based on income and expenses. Encourage them to save money.

  • Introducing the concept of income & expenses
  • Making a budget to plan income & expenses
  • Teaching about spending on basic needs & avoiding wasting money on unnecessary things.
  • Encourage habit of saving & charity
  • How to use ATM & debit card/ Credit card
  • Making payment at supermarket & paying bills

 

5. Grocery Shopping

Grocery Shopping

Visiting a grocery shop can be a fun for kids, taking the little ones to grocery shop side by side can also be a learning session for them.

Shopping grocery is another basic talent which a kid can master under parent’s guidance, as no high school can ever teach.

Demonstrate them price comparison, identifying best bargain deals and while checking out, show them how to use coupons, reward points, and swipe card to make payments.

  • Making a shopping list
  • Learning about brands & price comparison
  • Understanding nutrition details & volume/size on goods
  • Look for bargain deals
  • Saving money using coupons & reward points
  • Swipe card to make payments

 

6. Basic First Aid Skills

First Aid Skills

Kids often hurt themselves while playing. Children should know the basic first aid techniques which can be a lifesaver for anyone.

Although many high schools do teach first aid to their students, but it can be mastered over the time by applying in real life situations.

  • How to use first aid kit
  • Control bleeding by applying pressure
  • Identifying broken bone or allergic reactions
  • Cleaning wounds and applying antiseptics and bandages
  • Calling 911 for help in emergencies

 

7. Taking Stand for Themselves

Parents should empower their children to take a stand for themselves. Mastering self-defensive techniques is a vital life skill which can be very useful in the high school or anywhere in life.

Learning how to confidently dealing with bullying or any kind of abuse. Advocating themselves in situations like:

  • When someone cuts the line in between
  • Raising voice against any wrongdoing
  • Learn to say no when you don’t like
  • When someone is bullying or abusing
  • Using self-defence techniques

 

8. Basic Communication Skills

Basic Communication Skills
Image: USDE on flickr

The basic communication skills are one of the essential life skill which every kid should master.

As they are an essential component of our daily interactions in places like high schools, university or office job. Some of these skills are:

  • Social interactions – at a job, university, with friends, family & strangers
  • Writing a letter
  • Sending email or text messages
  • Filling forms
  • Public speaking/presentation & eye contact

 

9. Decision Making Skills

As the kids approach towards adulthood decision-making skills is an important life skill which makes them confident, responsible and believe in themselves.

Mastering decision making is not easy as we have seen children are often confused to decide which toy or outfit to buy, choosing ice cream flavor or books.

Here’s the approach:

  • Identify what needs to be decided
  • Gathering facts and information for decision
  • Identify options & evaluating options
  • Choosing the best suitable option
  • Review decision, whether it meets your expectation or not

 

10. Time Management

Time Management

Patents are always worried about their kids spending too much time on screens and less interested in studies and other outdoor activities.

The main reason being, inadequate time management, which is an important life skill. Parents and school can guide children to master the art of dividing time for each activity.

This can be overcome by teaching children better time management.

  • Set a time for eating, playing, watching TV & going to bed
  • Scheduling daily activities in a checklist
  • Follow daily chores
  • Using a timer
  • Utilizing free time in some craft or DIY activities

 

11. Car Lessons

Car Lesson
Image: woodleywonderworks on flickr

Basic car knowledge adds an extra value to your kid’s life, mastering it takes them to the next level in learning life skills.

Some basic car skills are always good for kids to be learned at early ages, like:

  • Washing car
  • Fill air in tires & changing tires
  • Pumping gas at filling station
  • How to jump-start a car

 

12. Organizing Their Room

Parents often organize the room for their children, but eventually, kids should master this important aptitude at a young age so they don’t feel challenged in later part of life, in high school and university.

  • Encouraging habit of making bed daily: changing sheets, organizing pillows, folding blankets
  • Keeping books and stationery at a place in study table
  • Hanging outfits in wardrobe, putting shoes on the rack
  • Cleaning room & putting wrapper and other waste in the trash
  • Putting toys, guitar, and other kinds of stuff at their places

 

 

If you have suggestions for any other life skills to add here, we would love to hear from you in the comment section, please share the post with your loved ones.

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24 Comments

  1. K Prakash Kumar says:

    Nice post. Keep up the good work

  2. Love this! It’s so true.
    I have 4 young kids and I believe in age appropriate chores. They will be better off in the long run.

  3. Hello ,

    I saw your tweet about animals and thought I will check your website. I like it!

    I love pets. I have two beautiful thai cats called Tammy(female) and Yommo(male). Yommo is 1 year older than Tommy. He acts like a bigger brother for her. 🙂
    I have even created an Instagram account for them (@tayo_home) and probably soon they will have more followers than me (kinda funny).

    I wanted to subscribe to your newsletter, but I couldn’t find it. Do you have it?

    Keep up the good work on your blog.

    Regards
    Wiki

    1. Thanks for reading, really appreciate. Even I love cats, will follow tayo on Instagram. both the cats are amazing.

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  5. Great post, these are all so important! Kids need life lessons from parents just as much as they need education from school x

    1. Thanks Natalie… Appreciate your thoughts, indeed life skills are as important as academic lessons.

  6. Great Post. My little girl is three, she helps me with the washing and placing them into the tumble dryer after. Bless her. When she is a couple of years older I think I’ll get her preparing food with me. She lives baking at the moment. She pretends to be a doctor most days ha. Great tips here
    . X

    1. It’s a very good thing that at three she helps you in the laundry. Cheers!

  7. Caylen M. says:

    This is great and so important. Especially with the way the world is now it’s needed! I know kids who graduate high school and have no clue how to balance their bank accounts let alone cooking or laundry. I use only a few things I learned in high school everyday and almost all of them are from my Home Economics class! Great post!

    1. Its true, kids tend to struggle to get their things done after high school, Learning these skills early will certainly make their life easy.

  8. These are ideal lessons. They are certainly life skills. My boys hate chores ( I make them do chores anyway) but they enjoy cooking with me.

    1. Doing chores and cooking is a great way to teaching these life skills….. thanks Eric for visiting post.

  9. Great post! The part I love the most is #4. Money Basics: which says – “Teaching money basics to children leads to financial independence.” If we teach children how to earn money early in life, they will know how to become independent and smart in everything they do.

    1. Thanks Sam for visiting…. yes indeed financial independence is most important accomplishment for kid when they grow as adult

  10. Yes I agree! We were never taught the basics at school, folding laundry would have been a very useful skill to learn at a young age. I’m still not very good at it now ?. You have thought of everything here and come up with excellent ideas! Hopefully schools will include these in their lessons in the future. Great post! ? xx

    Bexa

  11. Rhyming with wine says:

    Excellent points and such crucial skills for our littles. I’ve cooked with ours since they were old enough to climb on a chair, as I think it’s such a fundamental skill for life. I also work in financial services and we have a programme which we run as volunteers for local schools and community centres to introduce money basics at an early age. Great read.

    1. I Agree, money basics should be introduced at early ages. Thanks for visiting.

  12. Such a nice post. Kids should be learned those life skills because they come to know difficulties and understanding the solutions.

    1. Thanks for reading the post. Learning these small skills make kids life easier and ready to take on challenges of life.

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