Soft Skills and Success: Made for Each Other
- Updated on 10 Mar 2020
- Child Learning
Preparing children for success is a major event in every parent’s life. And one of the most important parts of becoming successful is to learn soft skills. They are necessary for childhood development. These set of interpersonal skills that can prevent future problems.
Hard skills indeed are useful for landing a job or to become successful in business, but to get there you need to have soft skills. As with so many other individual skill sets, the foundation for these soft skills is best laid in the earliest years of a child’s life. Unlike hard skills like math, science, reading, writing, and social studies, which can be studies m in school, soft skills can be learned both at school and home but more at home than anywhere else.
Soft skills foundation lies in early childhood
Academic learning is always the top priority at schools today and soft skills have been relegated way below the priority list. The fact is in today’s highly global world, career and productivity are as dependent on academic and technical skills as they are on soft skills.
While much of the current educational system in our country focuses on academic and intellectual skills, soft skills are equally and critically important for the overall development of the children. Several studies done over the years show that soft skills learned in the early years of life lead to success in life, stable relationships, and success in business and career.
Soft skills lead to healthy social and emotional development
Soft skills are very important for the healthy social and emotional development of a child. Children that learn soft skills will more likely to develop emotional, cognitive, and social skills. While it doesn’t mean that soft skills should be developed only in the earlier years, they can be developed even in adulthood, but just like brain development itself, it is easier to learn these in the initial years of life.
Early learning is always effective and impactful
The job market is always competitive and to succeed one needs to develop personal traits, habits, and attributes and these can be developed effectively only in the early years of life. It’s understood now that the early development of soft skills is most effective at supporting better brain development and professional success.
Here’s the list of soft skills that one needs to be successful:
Communication
The most important soft skill to success is communication and this includes reading, writing, listening and speaking. Today’s children are technologically aware but poor in communication and teaching them this skill will help them in communicating through writing or speaking.
Confidence
The second most important skill to learn to be confident. All of us fail at some point and it’s only confidence that sails us through. Similarly, when children learn confidence in their skills and abilities, they will grow to become confident individuals.
Collaboration
Collaboration is one of the most essential parts of working as a team. Allow your child to be part of a team either at home with siblings or friends or while playing outside the home. They will learn skills like taking turns, control emotions, and being sensitive to the needs of others.
Content
If you want your child to develop critical thinking habits, then he/she must learn to read, understand, and absorb content. All of us are lifelong learners and you must train your child to become a lifelong learner. Tell him every day is a day to learn something new, regardless of the day and age.
Creativity
Another important soft skill is creativity. This is something that needs to be cultivated and can be used in just about anything- talking, thinking, writing, studying, planning or just about anything.
Conclusion
As mentioned earlier soft skills are something that a child only learns outside the classroom. You need to provide your with child opportunities inside and outside of the house to learn soft skills. However, the easiest and best way to teach children soft skills is to show it to them. When your child sees you doing these skills—they will not only learn to value soft skills but also know where and when to apply these in real-life situations.
There is an important link between soft skills and success. If parents are to play their part in strengthening that link, they must focus on helping their children develop soft skills that contribute to their professional and personal success.
