Life skills vs academic skills: what do children need most?

We all know that education aims to promote successful individuals, communities, and whole societies. 

Unfortunately, we hardly understand that children's enthusiasm for learning can block/unblock their creative ideas and urge to learn new life skills.

Before further discussion, I need to explain to you about life skills and educational skills. 

What life skills do-help children in their careers and future lives?

• learn to work as part of a team
• develop positive self-esteem
• develop the confidence to present their own opinions clearly 
• skills help children to become a successful adult, who positively contribute to society 
• interact with the global world

What are educational skills?

• young people develop their higher-order thinking skills
• their thinking skills involve the ability to analyse information break it down into parts 
• evaluating or judge ideas and texts to use learned knowledge to create new ideas

Why both skills equality are vital for successful individuals in our society?

We have to train our children in both skills because both skills are equally essential for their future success. Why? You can ask yourself.

Did you learn all the above skills when you were a child?

What life challenges are you facing at the moment?

These could be financial, psychological, environmental or relationship.

In many researches, I found that handling the stress and unhappiness in life is the biggest challenge for most people.

Rich people or poor people, both are struggling to figure out their life challenges, and these are due to a lack of life skills. 

Do not let your child be victimised due to not maintaining a balance between two of these skills  (educational and life skills). 

Why 10 minutes of reading is essential for both academic skills and life skills?

Most of the genius children left behind in their educational curriculum due to their  handwriting , reading or numeracy skills. This could lead children to fall behind, that's is the reason, children can undermine in confidence and self-belief. To overcome these barrier, reading 10 minutes a day is a key to improve children's whole educational outcomes.

How you can boost reading habits?

• find a space with minimal distractions and noise
• find the same time every day before bedtime or after dinner for book reading 
• respect your child's choices while selecting reading books 
• before you start reading, ask them about the images, author or content of the book, to develop an interest
• share reading with a child to generate interest and read aloud 
• ask open-ended questions

Do not pressure children and don't let them sacrifice their tastes, such as clothes, hairstyle or activities, because they can develop an unhealthy pattern of self-confidence,  that can have long-term negative impact in their adulthood. such as...

• low self-esteem
• stress
• lack of satisfaction 

Therefore, teach your children to express themselves through choices in their early stages 

Why 'To Do List' and each day planning is important?

Give your child a challenge to write do list every single day. This habit is one of the habits of highly effective people in this world. They plan every single day.

Grading vs progress - which one is more important?

To develop talent, and boost your children's strength, teach them that  failure is another way of learning new skills.

 Every successful entrepreneur or successful businessman shares that they learn more when they fail in their life. They learn from their mistakes and retake challenges with better understanding.

Getting a good grade is good, but keeping progress and developing a learning attitude is more important to compete in this competitive world.

I hope I have provided you with useful information about life skills and educational skills to make your children's life better as a successful individual of this society and community.