Some Tiny Tweaks to Help Children Develop Soft Skills
Helene Lieberman MS, OTR/L
Times may have changed, but some skills are always needed. Children will hopefully grow in to adults who are productive. These children will be the decision makers and caretakers of the future- making decisions and possibly taking care of us!! Who do you want in those roles???
Group Work
Group work and projects are an important place for children to communicate and collaborate. Children will need to express their ideas and listen to others’ ideas. This also develops language skills; expressive, receptive and pragmatic. Listening to others and processing them, then problem-solving with others to get a final outcome is needed for every relationship.
How do you help children learn these skills? As parents, chores can be assigned to 2 children. They can work together on one chore or both have the same chore and have to figure out a schedule or a role each will have to get the chore accomplished. At school, the teacher can rotate to each group and give each child a role and even create questions for students to ask each other to develop teamwork. When children do run into problems, and they will, help them critically think through the problem. Ask them: What is the specific problem, what they tried and why they think problem happened and how they think the problem can be fixed. Always help get them started, and HELP them problem solve. Don’t solve the problem for them.
Evaluating Information
Many people take what they are told or read as true information. But we know that is not the case, especially in this age of AI. Teaching children to evaluate information and determine if it is accurate is critical and part of critical thinking. Have you ever bought a cream for ten dollars online that promised great skin only to end throwing it in the garbage? The information you were provided with online influenced you decision to buy that product. Buying the cream for ten dollars and tossing it out, is a very small consequence for the decision you made. But what if it was a bigger decision? For example; buying a house out of state only to find out that the house did not exist after you spent the money, sold your house, packed up and moved the family. I hope no one does that as they have the ability to think critically about the information provided.
How do you help children develop these skills? Start by giving them questions to tease apart the information. What is the source of the information? Does the source of information have an agenda? Did they look at other sources to verify the information? Did they break the information down and look at each piece of the information? What do you think would happen if… ? Look historically, and it could be recent history, at good and bad decisions that were made and the outcomes of that decision. Give children guidance to analyze a situation that led to a decision. What are the facts of the situation? What was the decision. What happened when the choice was made. What would have happened if another decision was made?
Creativity
Being a creative thinker means being able to look at challenges with an open mindset and find original solutions. It is not about creating a beautiful picture or an original poem. Those are great skills as well, but when children create their own solutions to problems, confidence builds.
Making a choice is another way to promote creativity. Of course, the curriculum needs to be taught, but how can it be taught is something the children can help decide. Ask the children “what if” questions regarding topics they need to know and have them answer based on other facts they know. i.e. “What if no bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?” There can be no wrong answers, just creative thinking. Have student’s act out, narrate or do something creative and have them teach a lesson.
Transferring Skills
Transfer skills is the ability to take what you have learned it and apply that information to a new situation. This may not be a direct transfer of skills; it is based on what is known and being able to use context of the new situation to figure out the problem. You can ask the students if a new situation reminds them of anything else to get them to compare and contrast. Sometimes two different situations/ problems require the same solution. When you begin teaching counting, you count everything. It is best to start with small changes. If someone can write an essay with correct grammar, they should be able to write an email with correct grammar. If the student can do percentage math on a test in school, they should be able to calculate a tip or how much they will pay for an item on sale.
So please take some time as parents, caregivers, teachers and friends to help children grow into adults that can do more than spit back information. Help them use the information learned to make good decisions and be good citizens.
Comments