Essential Life Skills

Paul Bushell discusses what’s important to teach your children in order to prepare them for a career in a constantly changing world.

For many children, their future job doesn’t exist yet. Living in a constantly changing world means that jobs are disappearing and emerging all the time. This often leaves parents feeling unsure about what they should be prioritising in their child’s development. And although there is no winning formula for childhood development and parenting, talking about careers seems like a useful consideration to add to the list. Too many people leave their careers to chance.

Here are 5 things to be doing with your child to prepare them for a career in a constantly changing world:

Head

Cognitive skills, like critical and analytical thinking, problem-solving, curiosity and creative thinking allow people to solve problems with innovative solutions. We can anticipate that a constantly changing world will be filled with new needs and problems, and many new careers will be in response to these. From young, encourage children to engage in games and activities which require problem-solving. In everyday life, this also means not hurrying to solve all of children’s problems for them. Although it is often quicker and easier to do so, children can benefit from working through challenges and having responsibilities. This not only allows them to grow new skills, but also the belief that they can solve problems. It also means sometimes letting children be bored, and finding things – other than schedules and technology – to keep themselves busy.

Heart

Skills like emotional regulation and self-management will become more and more important. This includes skills like resilience, flexibility and adaptability, stress tolerance and empathy. Many parents want to help their children avoid hard feelings, worrying that these kinds of feelings will negatively affect their child’s development. However, learning how to identify, understand and choose what to do with a variety of feelings is crucial in an unpredictable and challenging world. It is more important to engage these feelings, and work through them in supportive ways. An ability to engage in emotions in this way, also allows people to recognise, empathise and support other people’s emotions. This is an important part of finding solutions to people’s needs and solving problems in a constantly changing world.

Hard Drive

There is no time to be anti-technology. It will continue to be an important part of all careers in some shape or way. However, there is a big difference between recreational use of technology – such as social media, online gaming etc – and actually learning how to use technology for a future career. Parents would do well to find structured opportunities and programs to stimulate tech skills, and not fool themselves into believing that hours of gaming and viewing is necessarily productive. A big part of this is learning how to emotionally and socially integrate technology into everyday life. This means learning how to have boundaries with technology.

Help

Help-seeking is a crucial part of getting ahead and being resilient. Learning how to make connections and asking for support is crucial. This means getting help for everything, but also career development and support. Career assessments, counselling, job shadowing, volunteering, and career planning should be structured and frequent in every home. This allows people to explore themselves and the world of work as they are unfolding. We can anticipate that people will change jobs and careers frequently in a constantly changing world, and learning from young how to reflect and grow a personal career plan is important.

Hope

Optimism and hope are important qualities and skills, especially when the world throws a curveball. Although these qualities come more naturally to some, learning how to catch and readjust thoughts that are negative or gloomy is an important skill. This allows people to manage their thoughts and perspectives, in ways that are realistic, balanced and fair. This is not to say that being worried or sad about something is not allowed, of course it is. It is more around a self-belief that these situations and feelings can be attended to. This means growing an optimistic confidence to be an agent for change in your own life.