Going beyond academics is of utmost importance as children need other skills such as communication and interpersonal skills in order to put their knowledge to good use. Home tutors and online tuition teachers are now trying new strategies and methods to make learning more interesting as well as teaching the application part of it.
Firstly, when parents teach students these skills, they should use ‘do’s instead of ‘don’t’s. For example, instead of saying ‘don’t slouch while sitting down’ or ‘don’t mumble while talking’, parents should say ‘sit up straight’ or ‘speak clearly’.
Whenever parents ask children not to do something, their innate rebellious nature will take over and they may purposely disobey. Thus, parents should instead guide their children towards what they should do. This will also help to ensure that they will obey what their parents say.
Secondly, many soft skills simply cannot be taught just by telling children what to do. Instead, they will come naturally to children if their parents lead by example.
One example of such a soft skill is having good manners. Parents may think that how they act will not influence their child’s behaviour that much but the truth is that parents are the main role models of their children.
Parents who use harsh words in front of their children, constantly bicker about other people and appear rude will inevitably influence their children to become rude and hurtful when they grow up. Thus, parents must be very careful to maintain a calm exterior and treat everyone nicely in front of their children so that they can learn what is the right thing to do.
Thirdly, not all soft skills can be verbally instilled into children. Some of them come with experience and will develop more and more every time they will have to use that skill. For these skills, it is up to parents to expose their children to these scenarios so that they are able to learn and apply them.
One such skill is effective communication. Many parents introduce their own children to others instead of letting them do it themselves. This can greatly affect their social skills and may cause them to become too shy to make friends and take the initiative in conversations due to having too little experience in doing so when they were young.
Fourthly, some soft skills can help to shape the entire personality and character of someone and is important for parents to ensure that their children have them. One such very important skill is self-confidence.
Having little self-confidence can negatively affect children’s mental health in the future and may result in them missing out on many opportunities in their life.
Thus, from a young age, parents need to ensure that their children know how special and important they are. If they do something good, parents should express how proud and happy they are. If they do something bad, parents should explain what they are doing wrong instead of shouting at them or beating them.
Fifthly, every parent loves their children to the moon and back and it is normal to be overprotective and pamper them. However, doing this excessively can also be detrimental in the future. When parents pamper their children too much, they get the wrong impression that they will be able to get what they want as long as they ask for it.
They may become too dependent on their parents and be lost if their parents are unable to help them. At the same time, parents should not completely neglect their child and be too strict on them. They need to find a good balance between being too protective and being too strict.
This balance will help children understand how reality really is and at the same time be independent.
Lastly, whether people like it or not, the society that everyone lives in is controlled by money. Many may claim that they do not care about money and they just want to live a happy and free life but the truth is that everyone needs to care about money.
Thus, it is important to emphasise about the importance of money to children from a young age. Without this emphasis, many children will spend their allowance without giving any thought to it believing that they can just keep asking for money.
However, at the same time, parents should also emphasise the importance of not being ruled by money. No one should be living their life with their own goal being to get more money.