Top 10 Skills for children: Positive parenting goals
The world we live in can sometimes be ruthless, right …? To cope with it, but also to feel good in life and be truly yourself and accomplished, it is essential to develop certain skills – and this from an early age – which refine our personality and flesh out our state of mind. , both personally and professionally.
The survey we conducted with our readers a few weeks ago revealed to us what they thought were the 10 most useful skills and in what order of importance:
1. Curiosity and openness
2. Imagination and creativity
3. Managing emotions and stress, well-being and self-confidence
4. Concentration and attention
5. Autonomy
6. Perseverance
7. Decision-making and the spirit of initiative
8. Respect for nature and the environment
9. Observation
10. Listening skills
We grouped some skills together when they both came up in the rankings and they felt complementary to us.
We will detail them below and try to understand the benefits for your child for each one.
Curiosity and openness
Curiosity and openness are by far the skills that came first in survey responses. Which seems quite logical, since it is these which, when they are developed and fulfilled in the child, create a bridge between the child and the outside world.
Without curiosity, no particular interest in anything, and therefore no learning possible.
Without openness, there is no quest for evolution and therefore no possible progress.
The open-mindedness will give the child the powerful desire to learn new things (to read, write, count, but also to speak English, Spanish, to master a musical instrument …), to s ‘to be interested in cultures different from one’s own, to travel …
But also to test different possibilities or experiences in a situation in order to know which one suits it best. He will thus be better in his life because instead of applying without understanding the conventions of society or what he has been taught, he will have discovered by himself a way of being and of living more suited to him and to its specificities!
Imagination and creativity
They are like the “logical continuation” of the curiosity and openness seen above. They flow from it and they are linked!
The greater the curiosity in a child, the more the imagination develops.
The more imagination is provided, the more interesting and extensive the creativity will be.
These are essential skills in the development of children and their personality. His tastes will be richer and more varied, because he will manage to project himself more into each situation, even as yet unknown.
He will also succeed in expressing his emotions, his fears, his questions or his possible traumas through artistic expression, whatever it is, which can only be beneficial since he will thus avoid keeping everything and rehashing in his head. .
We are not exposed enough to this learning in our life.
Managing emotions and stress, well-being and self-confidence
Several skills gathered in one pole here: indeed, we believe that all these aspects are connected and depend on each other.
Someone who knows how to manage their stress well, and their emotions in general (emotivity, sensitivity, fear, confidence in others, ease of speaking in public …) will feel more serene in front of others and will thus have more confidence in themselves . These qualities interact with each other.
The quality of our relationships with the individuals we meet depends on our self-confidence, which itself depends on our well-being.
“Feel good, feel good” – well-being that can be improved through good internal management of emotions.
Children who demonstrate good management of their emotions are more inclined to participate in activities and give themselves fully to what they are doing, because no parasitic emotion (or very little) disturbs them.
He will also learn to better manage the obstacles and vagaries of life, for which he must also be prepared gently.
Concentration and attention
To complete any task and any learning, focus and attention to what you are doing are among the few most essential keys to success.
We would like to recall the 2 nuances of these words:
• Attention – when we receive: we listen attentively, we are fully open to receiving what someone tells us;
• Concentration – when we act: it is the attention we pay to something that we do, for example I color, I am focused so as not to exceed.
To promote and make fruitful learning for your child – which lasts a lifetime and not the first 20 years of its existence – it is essential that he has a high capacity for concentration and attention.
Without attention, no real interest in the activity in question.
Without concentration, no long-term memory.
Otherwise, it greatly reduces the impact of any activity on the child, on their best interests, and does not penetrate their memory.
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Autonomy
Independence is a skill that everyone seems essential in life: sooner or later we are on our own and it is best to be well prepared for it. How to get your child to become independent little by little? How to be sure not to skip the steps by leaving it alone too soon?
Help me to do it alone …
Well, lots of games and activities exist for that. Be careful to listen and observe your child to detect the moments when he feels comfortable doing it alone, and the activities during which, on the contrary, he is disconcerted and seems lost: he is not yet ready to be so independent.
Be careful, however, to differentiate laziness, lack of envy for another reason, and discomfort that comes directly from a level of autonomy that is not suitable.
Perseverance
In both personal and professional life, without perseverance we get nowhere. This capacity is also the logical continuation of the capacities seen above. Perseverance allows you to reach your goal once the locomotive has started.
If you want to learn a new language, a musical instrument, be useful in an association, organize Granny’s 90th birthday … or just get your work done, you have to be persevering, this is the only solution.
Any activity requires to hold out until its final accomplishment, if not all the work done, the efforts generated, the motivation gathered … will be useless and will be reduced to nothing if the project does not succeed (unless it do not push you to start another project or to change direction).
Concentration and attention are essential for perseverance, and vice versa! It’s funny !
Your child needs to understand now the importance of this quality and its essential aspect.
This is complicated in the current education system because he is “forced” to do such or such an activity that he does not want to do, and conversely he is not able to work what he wants at school. when he wants it. We therefore push him to be persistent on something that often does not motivate him at the time.
Relearn perseverance, explaining that it can simply be about being 100% in what you do and giving yourself completely to a passion or a project. “The best experience” (= being focused only on what you are doing when you are doing it) can be a form of perseverance, which is more enjoyable.
Decision-making and the spirit of initiative
In adult life, we spend our time having to make decisions and initiatives, from the smallest to the most important: how do I dress today? What do I cook for my guests? Where to go on vacation? What school do I enroll my children in? Do I accept this job that is offered to me but I don’t like too much, or the other that pays less but in which I will be more fulfilled?
In the workplace too, if we want to climb the ladder, we are asked to be proactive and to make the “right” decisions.
Endlessly, we are faced with endless choices.
It is therefore important to prepare our children from an early age to know how to make decisions without causing them endless stress or “headaches”. To be comfortable with making a choice even if it means giving up options other than those we have chosen.
Quitting doesn’t have to be negative, it can just lead us down a path that is ours. It’s all about perception!
Respect for nature and the environment
This “quality”, which could rather be qualified as “awareness” or even downright “knowing how to live”, has its place in the 10 most important “capacities” according to the readers in our survey and we are delighted!
It is obvious that today, knowledge of our impact on the environment is more than essential: it is vital!
It is urgent to transmit to children from an early age the faculty to feel responsible towards nature, and to act as we should have done for decades to preserve it and find a low impact.
The future is made of this: citizen, environmental, tolerant approaches … All in a collaborative framework!
Observation
It is the one that allows us to integrate into a group, to protect ourselves from dangers, to discern and understand the reality around us … And a lot of other things!
This is an ability that, unlike the others, has been fairly developed in children’s activities for quite a few years: the memory game, the 7 differences, shadows, the missing object, reproduction …
Developing it in children will allow them to be connected to their environment and make decisions with all the cards in hand, and will help them to live in full consciousness.
It is thanks to the attention we pay to what surrounds us that the sense of observation becomes finer. Everything is connected !
Listening ability
Like the sense of observation, the ability to listen is very important in the process of relating and connecting with the world around us.
We are talking about active and intelligent listening: hearing, analyzing what you hear, and knowing how to respond rationally.
It is essential to develop quality relationships with others, but also to be informed of what is going on around and to understand it. So why not give it more support in the children’s learning process?
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