Tweens are at the perfect age to start learning life skills and practicing independence. Tweens are still kids, but they morph faster than you’d probably like into teenagers. Pretty soon, they’ll be young adults. You want to ensure your tweens are ready for the challenges adulthood brings in every way you can.
Communication Skills
Tweens need to learn how to communicate effectively to achieve their goals. Without proper communication, relationships, jobs and the real world will be challenging for your child. Teach your tween how to communicate with customer service representatives and how to handle situations they will encounter as they get older. Ensure that you portray how effective conversation can come in handy.
You should also teach them how to return items to a store. Speaking to a worker about an issue can be frightening for tweens. They may not even want to answer the phone or make appointments. It’s important for tweens to learn how to do these things because they will have to do them at some point.
It’s also essential that you teach your tweens how to communicate their emotions. When children aren’t taught how to deal with negative feelings, they will most likely suppress them, which isn’t healthy. With proper communication, you can teach your tween how to deal with their emotions and set them up for success.
How To Do Laundry
Doing laundry is a basic life skill that your tween will have to know when they venture out on their own. Teach them how to sort laundry by their colours and what cycles to wash clothes on depending on their material. Teach them how to get stains out of clothing based on the stain. They should also be knowledgeable about checking the lint trap on dryers and how to fold laundry and put it away. This can double as a lesson in organization and ironing.
Specific articles of clothing should be ironed and hung up instead of folded. Teach them how to safely use an iron to get wrinkles out of clothes. Teach them about fabric stiffening sprays to stiffen and crease clothes to give them a professional and sleek style they will need for interviews.
How To Manage Time and Money
Managing money is arguably one of the most important life skills you can teach your children. With increasing prices on almost everything, tweens should know how to manage their money efficiently. Instead of paying them an allowance whether they do their chores or not, start paying them a commission. Only pay them for the tasks they get done on time. This can teach them how things work in the real world and how to manage their time better.
Opportunity cost is another great tool to teach at this age. Is the overpriced iced coffee worth it to not have enough money leftover for the shirt you want? Asking questions like this helps teach them how to consider their decisions and weigh the outcomes. Teach them how to save money and once they get a little older, you can start setting up bank accounts and teach them how to balance bills and such.
How To Cook
Learning how to cook and make family recipes is a right of passage for some tweens. They can be eager to learn how to look up recipes, shop for ingredients and spring their cooking skills into action. Other tweens can be resistant to this type of knowledge. Kids at this age need to understand that there most likely won’t always be someone to cook for them. Without cooking skills, young adults order takeout and live an expensive and unhealthy lifestyle.
Tweens need to learn how to be self-reliant and know how to feed themselves and their future family. Cooking at home for their family also boosts self-confidence. Learning how to plan meals and shop for ingredients helps tweens learn how to budget and save money. Then, there’s the actual cooking part, which can be an essential life skill to learn.
How To Understand Medication
It is important to teach your children about medications and their uses. Often, over-the-counter pills can be confusing. Learning from trial and error can be dangerous, so take the time to teach your tween about what to take for what symptoms. For example, Ibuprofen is used for inflammation, while Tylenol is used for headaches and muscle cramps.
Teach your tweens about the purpose of medications. If a bottle says PM, it shouldn’t be taken during the day. While this may seem like common sense, it may not register to your inexperienced tween yet. Keep medicine cabinets locked or out of reach until kids are old enough to understand the magnitude of taking the wrong medications.
Teach them the difference between prescription and over-the-counter and what to avoid. Never take medication if the seal is broken, and never accept it from strangers no matter how bad your migraine is. This life skill could change your tween’s life.
Life Skills For Tweens
Teaching tweens life skills can set them up for future success. They will be ready to venture out on their own confidently with the knowledge you’ve taught them. Don’t worry. No matter how old your tween gets, they will always need their parents– just maybe not all the time.
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