When it comes to trying to teach our teens life skills and prepare them for adulthood it can be downright overwhelming, exhausting, and seem completely impossible!!  Teens think they know so much more about life than their parents, but yet, they have no idea how to balance a checkbook statement, unclog the drain, or call their doctor to make an appointment!

It’s amazing how much smarter they think they are than us, but if on their own, they would not be able to do the simplest tasks without calling us to walk them through those simple life skills tasks that we do every day for them, over and over again.  How can we change this cycle?

The first step is to learn which life skills are essential for all teens to know before launching into the adult world.  To help you with this, we have categorized the most important skills for teens to know into five categories.  These categories are Daily Living Skills, Health & Wellness Skills, Personal Finance Skills, Social Skills, and Work-Ready Skills.

Daily Living Life Skills

Daily Living Skills are routine tasks and behaviors that are essential to everyday life. These are the most basic living skills. These are the life skills that will allow teens the basic skills needed to transition to being independent and living on their own.  There are many different types of Daily Living Skills.  But here are a few examples of these type of skills: cooking their own meals, how to change the oil in their car, knowing what to do if the water faucet won’t turn off, how to make an appointment, and how to find a location without using their maps app.

Health & Wellness Skills

The next category is Health & Wellness Skills.  These life skills provide teens the ability to take charge of their health by making choices to be physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually healthy. Teaching your teen to create balance in their life will drastically improve their personal health and wellness. If one’s personal health and wellness skills are lacking it will affect all other areas of their life.  A few examples of Health & Wellness Skills are recognizing signs of illness, having good sleep habits, choosing healthy food options, and finding ways to manage their stress and emotions.

Personal Finance Life Skills

Our third life skill category is Personal Finance Skills.  Personal Finance Skills allow teens to understand, plan, and manage their own personal financial resources. Once a teen has their own money, it is important to start teaching them basic personal financial skills. Building these skills before they are out on their own will help set them up for financial success.  Examples of how teens can learn Personal Finance Skills are understanding the different ways to generate income, budgeting their money so they are spending wisely, learning the pros and cons of using credit cards or taking out loans, and ways to invest now for their future financial needs.

Social Skills

Next is our Social Skills category.  Social Skills are learned abilities that enable teens to communicate and interact with others successfully. These life skills relate to all areas of life, as we all interact daily with others whether at school, home, or at work.  Teens will not be able to thrive in the adult world without learning good communication skills.  Some ways that teens can incorporate Social Skills into their everyday life could be having in depth and complete conversations with their family members or friends, learning to control their emotions and responses when things don’t go their way, learning to fail and move on from disappointment, and how to listen more and show concern for others.

Work-Ready Life Skills

Our final life skills category is Work-Ready Skills.  Work-Ready Skills are professional traits and behaviors needed to be minimally qualified for and maintain employment. In order for young adults to live independently and support oneself, they must learn these Work-Ready skills to become employable when they are in their teen years.  Some ways to practice these skills are waking themselves up without your help, joining clubs or groups to work as part of a team, filling out applications and resumes for a job, and interviewing for a job.  Having your teen work a part time or summer job provides all types of real-world Work-Ready Skills experiences that can’t be taught at home.

While I know that parenting middle school and high school teens is hard and I know how busy we can get with all trying to keep up with all of their activities, the most important thing you can do for your teen is to teach them the skills they will need when they leave your nest.

Now that you have a basic understanding of the five life skills categories that are essential for a successful transition from teen to young adult, next step in this process is to identify all the skills your teen still needs to master and get started teaching those skills to your teen.  The teen years fly by, so don’t waste any time and get started teaching your teen these life skills today!

If you need additional information on specific life skills to teach teens or how to teach specific skills to your teen, get started by opting in to our Living, Loving, Empty Nesting email newsletter and get our FREE Essential Life Skills Checklist for Teens.

You can opt-in and get your free checklist at https://livinglovingemptynesting.com/LifeSkillsforTeens