Life Skills for Teens

What’s Inside: Life Skills for teens … Do you want to prepare your teen for life with useful skills? Here’s a look at some of the top life skills to teach your kids.

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Why teach Life Skills for Teens?

I’m strongly in favor of teaching your kids useful skills to prepare them for life. It’s sort of the basis of homeschooling – you believe deep down that other options of education aren’t right for your family and you want your kids to reach their full potential.

Yet, even public schools are based on the notion of “preparing kids for life”.

The real issue is the difference of opinion on what skills we think are important and what and how to prepare your kids for life.

Obstacles with teens

Skills are important to teach because you have to remember that a young person doesn’t have a fully developed brain – e.g. executive functioning (things like time management are in this part of the brain) isn’t fully mature until around age 26. But you can help that along.

Here are some bad examples illustrating why you may want to be proactive in these areas.

Bad Examples

Example 1

For instance, a horrible example would be someone who thinks life is hard (worldview) and children should be prepared for life so they make everything tough to make the kid tough enough to take it. A silly example of this is Johnny Cash’s song A Boy Named Sue whose dad abandons him after naming him Sue so the other kids would taunt him his whole life and the kid would become tough.

This parent is still “preparing the child for life”.

But if it were real, it’s terrible, right? (The song is intended to be funny.)

Example 2

If you look up “Top Life Skills for Teens”, you generally get the currently popular, generic ideas of what kids need. Things like:

• problem solving & critical thinking
• communication skills
• decision-making
• creative thinking
• self-awareness building skills
• empathy
• coping with stress skills

But again, I think most of these still fall under the category or “what exactly do you mean by that?” And many posts on those topics fall into the category of “pablum”* and never really get to the heart of the issues.

*pablum: drivel, baby food, garbage.

That’s the vocabulary word of the day.

In this case specifically, I think we can all pretty much agree that our kids should be able to use critical thinking skills to make good decisions. But that’s like saying, “We should teach our kids to eat healthy.” What’s the standard for “healthy”? Certainly not certain food pyramids (which change based on the sponsor!)

So what do we mean “preparing kids for life”?

It comes down to what you value. What resonates with you and works for your family.

For instance, take an example that most parents can agree on: “communication skills”.

What will your kids need to become effective communicators as adults? Many adults are bad at this.

• Can they organize their thoughts on the spot to concisely expand their ideas or a response to a question? Or will they drift away from their own point and repeat themselves repetitively or wander aimlessly through their forest of thoughts?
• Can they extract and summarize the important parts of what someone else has said or written? Or will they miss the main point and latch onto an insignificant part of the communication?
• Can they write effectively and persuasively? You know the “or” to this one — Or not.

I could go on, but those are specifics that I think of right away.

Side Note

Speaking of wandering from the main point (which I do purposefully – it’s to keep you smiling!) …

Do you realize that narration is a tool that addresses those communication skills? So does public speaking. There’s more than one way to learn skills.

But Communication Skills are not the only thing they need

Communication skills are important, but not everything.

What else do you think is important?

• Practical skills like being able to do their own laundry? We started practicing that at age 8. Mysteriously, they were very good at it at ages 8-15, then something happened at 16 – they forgot how to do laundry. And that they were supposed to wash clothing every so often…
• Cooking skills? Again, we started at 8. They are all pretty good cooks now.
• Financial skills like managing their own money? You’d have to have practice this. And talk about it as a family. When I was growing up, my family never talked about money (perhaps because we never really had any). Yet, knowing how to manage your finances and spend within your means is vital. And entrepreneurial skills are pretty good to learn too while a teen – because of the fail safe of really not needing to earn a living 9-5.
• Reasoning skills for evaluating ideas? These are tricky. All of us can convince ourselves that our reasons are just, when they might not be. Charlotte Mason taught that relying on our own reasoning can be faulty because we sometimes convince ourselves that something is a good idea when it really isn’t. Think about that comfort chocolate that you reach for if you are upset! Or is that just me? Regardless, your kids need a sound basis for reasoning.

And another thing about reasoning skills is that most people teaching reasoning skills are really teaching you to think the way they think. Classical logic is not really taught much anymore and so people don’t see logical fallacies.

Does it come down to worldview? How do you help your kids develop a sound way of evaluating ideas?

There are so many things to learn!

Another tool for teen life skills

I’m participating in The Life Skills Leadership Summit which is designed for you to learn from 30+ homeschooling experts on this exact topic. I’ve heard scuttlebutt that their will also be a special session of interviews with a number of homeschooled teens.

In addition to that, here are some of the specific, actionable workshops you can attend.

• Preparing to Launch: A Homeschool Parent’s Guide – 6 essential life skills every kid needs.
• Future Proof Your Kids: Raising Self Starters and Innovators – looks at autodidact and entrepreneurial skills.
• Give Your Children & Teens the Tools of Learning – tips and strategies for developing the love of learning.
• Want Independent Learners?- First, Master Your Homeschool Schedule – gives tips for habits to help teens handle their high school workloads.
• Graduate Early, Succeed Faster: Strategies for Homeschool Teens – talks about setting the foundation for a confident, capable young adult ready to take on life whether they graduate early or not.
• Flip The Scale: Teaching Our Kid to View Failure As Success – helps your teen look at failure as a learning experience.
• Public Speaking: How to Start and Run a Public Speaking Club with your Kids – communication skills workshop taught by yours truly.
• Visionary Education: A Look Under the Hood at Your Educational Assumptions – another workshop that I’ll be presenting. We’ll look at handicraft and how it shapes character and confidence in your kids.

Get your free pass to the Life Skills Leadership Summit now. And tune in from February 24-28, 2025 to these awesome workshops and dozens more. Join us today.

What life skills for teens are most important?

What do you think? I’ve listed a bunch. Did any resonate with you? As you plan your homeschool for high school, you may want to consider how to implement these.

FAQ

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