We are constantly looking for ways to raise self sufficient kids but it is not always easy. Trying to do so without being controlling and being supportive makes it even harder. The key is to find the right balance between our expectations and their understanding of our expectations.
Being a parent, you know the effort required in order to discipline and raise your kids to be decent samaritans. Patience and hard work, among other things, are a total understatement, of the effort put forth, in teaching your kids the twelve skills we are about to discuss here.
Keep in mind the skills mentioned here are going to shape your life in your youth, teen, adult, and elderly years. Therefore, it is important you start implementing these skills early on in life, because the beginning of every task is always the most important part.
Skill #1
Problem Solving
This boils down to comprehension and systematic approach. Not only is being able to observe and develop an awareness of your environment important, you also need to understand fully why things are the way they are and seek ways to improve them.
I think of problem solving as, effectively overcoming obstacles based on experience. In doing so, one thoroughly identifies, diagnoses, makes decisions, takes actions, and monitors the outcome of their ideas and changes what they want to see. Such a process can and should be applied to your personal and work environment. This skill is one of the key factors to an innovative mind-set.
For instance, we keep telling our little ones to figure things out on their own. This action alone stimulates their minds to start thinking and to come up with creative ideas that yield the desired outcome. The end result, a smile on their face, a lesson learned, and “I figured out the problem, see, high five.”
Skill #2
To Lead Others
This is one of my favorite skills, because to be able to become an effective leader, you have to be an exceptional individual. One that has the following traits:
- Clear Vision
- Excellent Communication
- Sense Of Humor
- Positive Attitude
- Confidence
- Commitment
- Ability To Inspire Others
- No ego
Although some of these traits are something our 4 and 6 year old kids don’t quite understand yet. It is important for us to remind them that communicating, being committed to a goal, staying positive, and having fun while working with others, will lay the ground work to becoming a more effective leader.
“Leadership is not about being liked – it’s about staying safe in tough times and giving people a vision of why what they’re doing is important so they can make a difference.” – Mike Abrashoff
Skill #3
To Want To Make Money
Note the subject line, we want to show our kids that you can’t do anything with money until you earn it first. By teaching them this step, they are going to understand how to value their earnings, time, and effort. Money is an important tool in life and some of our choices depend on our ability to earn.
Ultimately, they can make better decisions when it comes to saving, investing, and spending. They can make their own decisions in terms of how they want to allocate their money towards a certain category by knowing what it takes to earn money in first place.
In order for our kids to become self sufficient with this skill, we have to teach them financial decisions lessons along the way. It is important for us to make sure we communicate clearly and prioritize earning vs. spending habits. In other words, we have to walk the walk and talk the talk, as they learn by imitation.
They are going to make mistakes along the way, and that is perfectly normal. Those mistakes are going to lay the ground work and help them understand, that money does not grow on trees. As long as they have the desire to make money, they will be alright.
Skill #4
Public Speaking
An important skill to have in your tool box. We all face some sort of anxiety or fear of public speaking. It could be for number of reasons, such as being nervous or shy. And that is fine, it wasn’t until I was 20 years old that I finally conquered my fear of public speaking. My biggest challenge was spitting out words. Every time I got up and spoke in front of a crowd, I drew a blank and start mumbling. I’m pretty sure I looked ridiculous, but that did not phase me, I knew I had to get better at public speaking so I kept working on my skills until I got better. It wasn’t easy but it was doable.
At night, before our kids go to bed, I ask them to tell me a story. The kids pick a random topic they want to discuss and talk for few minutes, while everyone else is listening. This gives them the opportunity to express themselves by describing certain occurrences in details. When the story ends, we all ask questions and it becomes an open conversation at that point. We repeat the same process until everyone is done telling their story.
With that said, we are teaching them ways to express them selves in front of others. Being able to openly communicate to others, and being understood, is a very important trait. This in turn is going to boost their self confidence, overcome their fear (e.g. my personal struggle), and inform and motivate others.
Skill #5
To Ask Questions
I hear people often say, I have a silly question. Let me tell you, there is no such a thing as silly question. In fact, all questions are good, great, and excellent! However, there are silly answers.
So question more, ask questions and just keep on asking questions. The more questions you ask the better equipped you are to make an informed decision and wiser choices. Asking questions is the best way to learn and fil the knowledge gap.
So question more…!
Skill #6
To Learn From Mistakes and Failures
We all make mistakes, and our kids are no exception. We expect them to make mistakes throughout their life. Again, it is a perfectly normal occurrence. We expect them to hopefully learn from their mistakes and to not repeat the same mistake twice. Ultimately, they are going to develop the common sense to make good decisions.
To become a master in anything you do, and I mean anything, it is inevitable that you are going to make a mistake or two or even three before you reach your goal. These mistakes and failures hold the key to the next steps and ultimate success. Eventually, you are going to realize that it is the very same mistakes or failures that motivated you to do better and do things more intelligently.
Right now, our kids are learning things the hard way. Their emotions and our rational have not quite aligned yet. We do not want to see them getting hurt but their little minds do not comprehend exactly what that means. Therefore, there is a lot of back and forth talk, stress, convincing and so on going on in our household. On occasion things happen, they get hurt, cry hard, feel better, and eventually learn not to repeat the same mistake again or otherwise it is going to hurt again.
Same goes when they learn to eat with chopsticks, or do their homework, or clean the house, or ride a bike. Whatever the task may be, they make mistakes, but we have to constantly remind them that you have to correct your mistakes and move on, not hang on BUT move on.
Let me say it again, as long as you learn from your mistakes and failures and you do not repeat them, you are doing great.
“Every great cause is born from repeated failures and from imperfect achievements.” – Maria Montessori
Skill #7
How To Sell
Selling is about building relationship with your clients. To learn how to sell you need to be an active listener, have in depth knowledge of the product you are selling, communicate well, ask questions, and leverage emotion and logic.
To make a sale or sign up a client, requires an enormous amount of patience and persistence. It is not easy to convince people that what you are selling is actually going to benefit them. To that end, you need to be self motivated and consistent with your strategy.
My suggestion is that you find a product that you are passionate about, something that you have tried and you loved so much so that you want to share it with the rest of the world. By doing so it will make it easier for you to sell the product to your target group.
Our plan is to play monopoly style board games with the kids in-order to ease them into the “how to sell” mindset.
By exercising the above characteristics, I’m pretty certain you are indirectly going to become great negotiator.
Skill #8
To Never Give Up
Giving up is not an option! Finish what you started. Read skill # 6. Enough said!
Skill #9
To Be Creative
Throughout life you are going to face challenges and obstacles. How you overcome and solve these challenges and obstacles will determine your ability to think creatively. In other words, creativity is inspired when there is a problem to be solved.
Oftentimes I say jokingly, “always thinking” and what I mean by that is, that no matter how big or small the task is, you should always think a little harder and figure out the best way to solve the problem or address particular situation. Then there is the “kaleidoscope approach” to things; looking at things from every possible angle and coming up with solution or proposition.
Using your imagination and curiosity stimulates your mind to see problems as opportunities and makes you work harder. It is important to develop this kind of thought process early on in life because it gives you the advantage of having the necessary experience addressing any challenge.
Every time our children work on their homework, learn how to ride their bikes, put a puzzle together, fix a toy, learn how to ski, all to get stuck at one point; we make a point to communicate to them to “figure things out and solve the problem”. By doing so, it encourages them to be creative, seek solutions, and establish a new way of thinking.
The importance of being creative gives you the ability to:
- Be successful
- Make a difference
- Build self confidence
- Envision future events based on your analysis
- Become a subject matter expert
- Be open minded and flexible
- Set an example for others
Skill #10
How To Save Money
Saving money is a pretty straight forward process once you train your mind to it. It took Leslie and me a while, simply because we ignored the definition of saving for a very long time.
With that said, we are teaching our kids about savings and investing early on in life because we want them to be financially secure. It is important for our kids to understand how to save and what to save for.
For instance, we personally track all of our spendings and savings using an excel sheet, in addition to using the free money management tool, Personal Capital. The main reason we are doing this is because it provides a budgeting framework and it helps us prioritize our financial goals. On top of that, we are tweaking our spending routines from time to time in order to increase our savings rate. These tweaks apply to short and long term savings strategy.
To make savings simple and efficient this is what we do to save.
- Set up automatic transfers from checking to investment account
- Plan major purchases in advance
- Use discounts when applicable at restaurants, shops, events, etc.
- Grocery shop in bulk (e.g. Costco), buy generic label goods, and always pay attention to prices
- Revisit recurring payments such as mortgage, cell phone, insurance, etc. frequently and look for ways to lower these payments
- Track all of our spendings and find creative new ways to save on everything that eats your money
- Stay frugal and be consistent
Now that you have a saving strategy in place, it is time to think about what you saving for.
- Financial freedom so you can do anything that makes you happy, on your own terms
- Education
- Stash of cash for dental expenses, house or car repairs, paying debt off, and a number of other unpredictable things that come up as emergencies
- Retirement
- Paying for major purchases such as starting a business, buying a house, traveling or living abroad.
How you save and what you save for is a matter or personal choice. As long as you live on 70% of your income and allocate the remaining 20% to savings and 10% to paying off debt you are doing great. Keep in mind that if you don’t have any debt you can allocate the 10% to your favorite charity instead. As you build a solid budgeting framework, you are going to get more comfortable with your saving strategy, which will pave the way to higher savings rate.
Skill #11
To Ask For Help
From time to time we find ourselves facing all kinds of challenges. Sometimes we can resolve these challenges on our own, other times we seek help from others.
Asking for help is what we remind our kids to do on daily basis as they learn new things. Instead of getting frustrated and give up, we ask them to ask for help or assistance. So far, this skill has yielded great results for them. We have noticed over the years they are more comfortable asking for help and more engaged in what they are working on. On top of that, they are showing interest in tackling new things instead of shying away.
Our goal is not to sterilize their way of thinking or ability to solve a problem on their own, instead to let them know that it is OK to ask for help when you struggle to find a solution. We want them to be comfortable asking for help regardless of what it is they are trying to do.
Right now, asking for help ranges from doing their homework, cleaning the house, zipping up their jacket, brushing their teeth, or making their bed, among other things.
Skill #12
To See Solutions
Being able to brainstorm nurtures curiosity and gives you the ability to solve current and future problems. To be able to see alternatives to an existing problem and write your ideas down is very powerful technique, which derives from experience and creative thinking.
A problem could be a lab assignment in graduate school that you are required to complete. The assignment for instance has its own set of challenges and you are looking for ways to see that the problem is solved and the situation does not reoccur. In turn, this requires you work in a team and collaborate with your professor in order to come up with the most viable solution.
On the other hand, you might not be able to solve a problem at all and that is ok. In such case, you learn that you need to be persistent and have a second, third or even a forth attempt. This is going to teach you that it is not always easy to solve a problem but there is always a way, sometimes more than one way, to solve a problem.
So play on, stay focused, as playing is the best way for you to research and come up with solutions.
Final Thoughts
The order of these skills does not represent the importance. To us, all skills discussed here are important, therefore we are working on teaching our little ones all twelve skills, and then some.
I’ve found that devoting time to enhance these skills has been of great benefit personally and professionally. We expect the same benefits for our children throughout their personal development. Most importantly these skills will pave the way to resolution to anything and everything they set their mind to.
Always be intellectually curious and don’t stop learning. Surround yourself with like-minded professionals and always seek the opinion of a role model. Strive to do your best in everything you set your mind to. Keep in mind that the world has become too complex for any one individual to have all the answers.
