6 skills that will help your child find a cool job in the future

Without them, professional knowledge simply cannot be applied.

Olga Lavrentyeva Head of the academic unit of the Skysmart online school for children and teenagers.

Ideally, these skills should be developed in a child from the age of 3-4, but the exercises that we will analyze in the article will work with children and adolescents of any age.

1. Creativity

One of the key skills of the future is creative thinking – the ability to find non-standard solutions for standard problems. It opens up the broadest horizons for a teenager.

Creativity is needed not only for designers and advertisers. A specialist with such a vein is a generator of a wide variety of ideas for getting out of difficult situations. Engineers, analysts, managers, journalists, marketers – any professional will only benefit from the ability to look at the problem more widely than is customary.

How to develop a skill

There are several exercises that will help change the habitual train of thought. When doing them, do not forget to support the child and in no case make fun – otherwise, in the future, he may avoid sharing his ideas.

• Build unexpected connections between objects. For example, think about what a bag and a banana have in common? Both items can be yellow and have an oblong shape.
• Think of creative ways to use items. For example, where can you use a pencil? They can not only draw, but also twist paper for crafts, stir paints or use it as a slingshot. Agree to name at least 30 options: this will push the boundaries from the obvious to the really creative solutions.
• Write a 100-word story or a 10-slide presentation. Invite the child to say something with exactly 100 words left. Or host a home project defense night. Alternatively, a 10-slide presentation titled “Why We Need to Get a Dog.” It is important to show that even with limited resources it is possible to reveal the topic as deeply and interestingly as possible.

2. The ability to think critically

The Internet is full of very different and not always true information. The ability to look at a problem from new angles, not to take everything that is said for granted, and to draw objective conclusions are fundamental skills that should be developed from school.

They will be useful to people of various specialties, including creative professions that no longer focus on inspiration alone. After all, objectivity and evidence are now in the foreground.

How to develop a skill

You can train the ability to think critically in a game format – it will be easier to captivate a child.

• Find two texts on the same topic. For example, about global warming. Understand how the authors cover the topic, how their arguments differ, and what studies they refer to. This exercise will teach your child to always form their own opinion and help them not to be influenced by advertising on the Internet.
• Play scientist with your child. Give him a statement to prove with at least three arguments. For example, people cannot live outside of society. Why? Because:
  1. A person is a social being.
  2. It is important for a person to feel needed and involved in something.
  3. Skills and talents cannot be realized outside of society.
• Play Fact or Opinion. Take an article where the authors express their assumptions, and ask the child to determine what is fact and what is opinion. As an example, here is the following passage. Scientists have suggested that the name Machu Picchu appeared by mistake/Gazeta.ru: “Scientists have suggested that the abandoned city of the Inca civilization Machu Picchu, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, could actually be called Huayna Picchu.” The fact that the abandoned city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site is a fact, but the scientists' assumption that this city could have been called differently is an opinion.
• Make a list of what you know and what you don't know about some object. Take, for example, an elephant in a zoo. You know that this is a mammal, they are gray in color and live in India. But you have no idea what elephants eat and how many years they live on average. Thanks to this exercise, the child realizes how much we may not know about a seemingly universally known object. This means that it is important to check everything that is said around, and not immediately take it for granted.

3. Ability to work in a team

This skill allows you to effectively interact with other people and apply your abilities to achieve a common goal.

Cooperation in a team reveals their strengths and weaknesses in people and broadens their horizons, because the participants learn to look at the task from different angles and pay attention to the opinions of others.

In the labor market, the ability to work in a team is required in almost every job. However, during school hours, teachers do not always pay attention to this skill. This means that you will have to work with the child yourself.

How to develop the skill

It all depends on your imagination. Here are some examples of techniques:

• Give up some household choresand see how the child reacts to it. Will he want to complete them himself or will he convince you to return to them, thereby developing the skill of the organizer.
• Give a group of children a joint task. For example, prepare gifts for mothers by March 8 in two hours. Observe the children, and then summarize who came up with the most ideas, who helped organize, and who did everything on their own without consulting anyone.
• Discuss with your child the importance of each role in teamwork on the example of a sports game. Let's say football. What happens if the goalkeeper is removed from the field? Why do you need a coach? Why can't you be an attacker and a defender at the same time?
• Teach your child to take on little things with enthusiasm. For example, washing dishes not only behind you, turning off the light even in the corridor and washing the floor in the kitchen. To stir up interest, come up with a motivation system. For example, Finnish child psychologist Ben Furman, in his book Child Skills in Action, recommends planning a holiday together to celebrate the successful acquisition of a skill. As a rule, children love not only the parties themselves, but also the preparation for them. This motivates them not to abandon the case, and gives parents confidence that the skill will definitely be mastered.

4. The ability to adapt to change

Today, the world is changing faster than even 10 years ago. New technologies are being developed, the circle of acquaintances is expanding, new professions are constantly appearing on the labor market and old ones are dying.

The ability to quickly adapt to all these changes makes a person a true professional. He will be able to step out of his comfort zone, adapt to market demands and find application for his skills in those industries that are most in demand right now.

How to develop a skill

The best way to make children's thinking more flexible – make changes to their daily routine.

• Try new homework methods with your child. For example, instead of the usual calculator, use paper and a pen, or do all the calculations in your head.
• Invite the child to do routine things with the other hand. For example, brush your teeth, have lunch or close the door. Many psychologists say that children are very enthusiastic about such experiments. And Paul Dennison, in his book Brain Gymnastics, writes that novelty stimulates the brain to work better, because both of its hemispheres develop.
• Perform the exercise “What if …”. Come up with an interesting idea or situation and invite the child to reason. For example: “What if the world goes completely offline?”
• Play Sherlock Holmes. Choose a place familiar to the child – a room, a park, the way home from school – and say that a crime happened here. To do this, write a little background in advance and lay out the evidence. For example, a piece of a note or someone's scarf. The task of the child is to investigate the crime. During the game, he will learn to pay attention to details, look at things from different angles and draw logical conclusions.
• Read a book with your child. Reading stimulates our brain and develops the imagination. We begin to better understand reality, take into account points of view different from ours, and acquire new knowledge that will be useful in conditions of uncertainty.