4 Life Skills for Teens to Teach in your Homeschool
The closer I get to launching my kids into the world as adults the more I am motivated to make sure life skills for teens is a part of our homeschool in an intentional way. With Outside the Box kids learning can happen at a different pace than their peers, but eventually they need all the same skills. We make teaching in the moment a priority and include them in discussions when we can.
After some recent situations I also realize that we have to be more intentional with the soft social skills that our teens need as they connect with peers more than their family as part of growing in independence. For students who struggle with anticipating social norms we have to be extra diligent as parents to provide instruction on the skills they need to succeed beyond our home.
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4 Areas of Life Skills for Teens to Learn
- Communication Skills
- Getting & Keeping a Job
- Personal Finance
- Independent Living
Communication Skills Teens Need
Teens need to learn to carry on conversations with adults and people of all ages. This is important for creating positive first impressions and can be easily practiced by allowing our students to introduce themselves when in public or including them in casual conversations with others at gatherings. Learning to take turns in conversation is a learned skill.
Learning to handle conflict is another important life skill to teach our teens for success at life beyond living at home. Conflict with roommates or coworkers will happen, and how our students respond can have lasting impacts. We can begin teaching these skills as conflicts arise within our family: we can talk through how we adults deal with them and coach our teens through their own conflicts.
Another important communication skill is managing one’s emotions. Emotions are important and make us human. Negative emotions will surface whether we like it or not, and we need to equip our students to handle them in appropriate and healthy ways that are safe to themselves and others around them. We can help them validate their feelings and help them build strategies to defuse their emotions while building empathy for others.
Life Skills Reimagined can help teach strategies for managing Negative Emotions & Conflict
Career Planning for Teens
It can be overwhelming for teens to decide what they want their future career to be. We can help them explore different industries and fields while they are still at home during the high school years, as part of their homeschool experience. There are also career assessments you can find online to help them discover what their interests, strengths and talents may push them towards.
Having a job can start when they are a teen as well. They can get a job in many states as young as 15. We can help them prepare for these opportunities by coaching them through the job application and interview process, as well as helping them learn about the employment and tax forms that come with an official job.
Life Skills Reimagined can help.
Personal Finance for Teens
With a job comes more life skills our students need to learn, including money management. Learning to budget can be exciting, as students plan how to spend their new income. Learning about credit, insurance and being a wise shopper are other skills our students can be motivated to learn when they are spending their own money instead of their parents. Learning how to stay out of financial trouble or coaching them through it when they make unwise decisions will help them more than fixing it for them in the long run.
Financial Skills to teach your teens
- Using an ATM
- Knowing if an online purchase is trustworthy
- Comparison Shopping
- Writing a Check
- Paying a bill online
- Checking a bank balance online
Preparing to Move Out
It’s hard to think about my teens moving out, with the oldest just hitting thirteen, but someday they will and there will be many surprises when they do (as there were for each of us when we left home for the first time). Knowing how to do your laundry is a good start but what about when the washer breaks: what do they do? The answer may be different if they have their own home or are renting one.
We can equip our kids and teens to be handy but surprises will come up and helping them think through options is our job as parents. Next time something breaks at your house, let your teen help problem solve how to repair or replace it.
Check out Life Skill Reimagined
Launching our Teens to Adulthood
We can teach our teens all kinds of skills and habits to be successful. Ultimately we have to trust that we have equipped them with what they need and how to get the knowledge they don’t have. Setbacks will come for our young people but how they react and handle each one will show their resilience and build them to be the people they were meant to be.
One of our homeschool goals is to raise our kids for success beyond our home, to launch them for adulthood. When we are intentional along the way we do that. When we need a little help there is Life Skills Reimagined to help. Their full year program equips students for success at 18 and independence in the real world.
