10 Tips to Help Build Your Child's Skills

Parents often don't know where to begin in teaching their child how to become a productive member of society. This can be a frightening thought when you look at your child. Teaching your child practical life skills can help them to be more successful.

1. Laundry

Have your child help collect the laundry from around the house and show them how to use the washing machine and the dryer. Many young adults move out of their parents house and realize that they have never done their own laundry before. Nothing is more demotivating than going to college and realizing that you can't even clean your own clothes.

2. Meal Prep

Have your child assist you with family meal preparation. This can teach your child simple skills such as cutting and mixing. So many adults can't prepare simple meals for themselves and are more likely to eat fast food, which has shown to be linked to obesity.

3. Grow a Plant

The simple act of growing something can give your child a sense of accomplishment. When they look at the plant, they can think to themselves that they did that. And they are learning about the world around them.

4. Cleaning the House

Nothing is more satisfying than having a clean house and not having to spend all day getting it that way. So many parents just look the other way and clean up after their kids. All this teaches the kid is that they don't have to do things for themselves and that someone else will do it for them.

5. Directions

Teach your child how to read a map. In the modern world, with smart phones that tell you how to get somewhere, this does not seem necessary. Learning to read a map allows your child to learn spatial visualization skills. It also shows your child where they live in the world.

6. Coaching

Coaching helps teach your kid how to train and improve, both on and off the field. While coaching is usually specific to one sport the overall fitness, hand-eye coordination, speed and other training aspects can carry over to all sports and activities and can set your child up with a healthy lifestyle that they could retain for the rest of their life. Personalized training is quite expensive but thanks to today's media you can look online for football, soccer, basketball or tennis training videos that can help your child improve.

7. Read to your Child

Kids want to learn about the world around themselves. The easiest way to do this is to read to your child every day and discuss the stories that you are reading to them. Talk about the words in the book and what they mean. Talk about what the characters in the book are doing and how that relates to them. This allows your child to develop critical thinking skills and to build their background knowledge skills.

8. Developing Creativity

Every child is creative, they just need to be given the opportunity. Creativity is just another skill set that needs to be encouraged. Give your child a creative outlet and allow them to express themselves. Provide basic resources like crayons or markers and don't put limits on how your child can express themselves. This doesn't mean that you should allow your child to draw all over the walls in your home, but don't show them how things have to be done.

9. Develop Social Skills

Kids develop their social skills in stages. Make sure to teach your child age-appropriate social skills. Teach your child to be empathetic. Talk to your child about how their actions make other people feel. Relate it in a manner in which they can understand, such as talking about something that happened to them and how it made them feel. Teach your child how to share. This can be a tough concept for kids who are used to being the center of the world.

10. Develop Communication Skills

Teach your child to use their words instead of acting out. Nothing gets you called in faster to a parent-teacher conference than your child throwing a temper tantrum in school. This is merely a reflection on the fact that the child does not know how to express themselves in a productive manner and instead acted out their feelings.

Raising a child can be difficult and is certainly time consuming. There is so much information out there about how to raise your child and what is important to teach them. But ultimately it is up to the parent in how they want to shape their child.