How to teach age-appropriate life skills to children: A therapist’s guide

Parenting is a tricky thing. We need to strike the correct chord between making the childhood of our kids’ fun, while letting them learn all that they would need to navigate through life without our help. This also involves ensuring that they do not have to go through any kind of trauma as they live through their childhood, under the guidance of their parents. Because, when children go through trauma in their childhood, it can stay back with them and affect their adult relationships and their thought process as they grow up. As we work on ourselves being good parents that our children cherish throughout, they also need to learn the tricks and tips of how to be independent in the later stages of their lives.

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Psychologist Jazmine McCoy, who goes by the name The Mom Psychologist on Instagram, is known for sharing such deep insights on parenting on her Instagram profile on a regular basis. Be it how to tackle them when they are angry or how to make them learn the important things that they will need later, her Instagram profile is replete with such informative posts. A day back, Jazmine shared a list of things that we need to teach our kids so that they can grow up to be responsible adults. She divided the life skills in four age groups:

Toddlers and preschoolers: Kids aged between 2 to 3 years need to learn the basic activities such as brushing their teeth with help from parents, putting their toys away after they are done playing and wash their own hands and face. These life skills will further help them to feel independent when they learn to do them without anyone’s help.

Preschoolers: Within the age group of 4 to 5 years, children need to learn about body boundaries and how to write their name, address. They also need to learn who to call in danger, and make their own choices about dresses to wear, food to eat.

Early school aged: As they start going to school by the age of 6 to 7 years, children need to learn how to respond to bullies and pack their own school bag. They should also be taught the important of learning to make a basic meal such as a sandwich and packing their lunch box on their own.

Late school aged: Children within the age group of 8 to 10 years should learn about their changing bodies that they will undergo during puberty. They should also learn basic life skills such as making simple food items, taking out the trash and maintaining personal hygiene.