Our fast-paced society may give you the impression that your child needs to constantly focus on academic skills, but this shouldn’t always be the case. Ouiam El Hassani tells us why we need to build our children’s soft skills.
Parents of young children tend to worry a lot about whether or not their kids are making adequate gains as they launch into their academic careers. While early education creates an important foundation for academic skills, many parents would be surprised to know that social skills are actually far more predictive of outcomes into adulthood than early academics.
These days, many parents and schools may be feeling the pressure to cut back on play and social interaction in order to get more ‘hard skill’ instruction time in, it’s actually those ‘soft skills’ that are most predictive of long-term success.
Here are some of the most crucial soft skills you need to foster in your child during their early years:
Play
Play is a powerful catalyst for development in the early years. By playing with others, children learn to negotiate, problem solve, take turns, share and experiment. You can help your child build these skills by making time for free play with other children.
Problem-solving
It is tempting to swoop in at the first disgruntled squawk and make everything right again. We confiscate the object of the argument, set timers, or send children to play in different areas. We’re good at problem-solving because we get SO MUCH practice as parents! And while some of this may be necessary for survival, our kids need some of that practice too.
So, the next time your child has a problem, invite them to take part in that problem-solving process. You’ll still be an active player, supporting your child through the process, while allowing them to take the lead.
How to label and recognise feelings
Children who are perceptive to the emotions around them are also able to get along well with others. You can foster this skill by calling attention to emotional cues and naming emotions. Storybooks are full of conflicts and emotions; they offer an opportunity to discuss the observed emotions easily because your child isn’t tied up in the turbulent emotions themselves. From this comfortable vantage point, they’re able to be more thoughtful about the emotions on the page and apply their understanding in real life.
Another thing to keep in mind is that research has shown that excessive screen use may interfere with a child’s ability to recognise emotions in others. So, make sure your kids get plenty of time to interact face-to-face with humans, rather than with pixels and lights on a screen.
How to be helpful
Being helpful to others requires children to look beyond themselves and recognise the needs of others. By noticing and complimenting your child when you notice helpful behaviour, you encourage them to continue.
Control their impulses
Children need opportunities to practice impulse control as the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which controls impulses, doesn’t completely develop well into early adulthood. It can be done through movement games that require a child to stop and go like ‘Red Light/Green Light’, ‘Dance and Freeze’, and ‘Simon Says’. They allow kids to practice quickly shifting gears and controlling their impulses to move.
‘Soft’ social skills are developed in early childhood through the slow, simple processes of playing and interacting, engaging with famiy, and paying attention to the world around us. Needless to say, while ‘hard’ skills are helpful, ‘soft’ skills will serve our children much better and for much longer.
