FAMS 1500 10 Life Skills Podcast

The podcast discusses the importance of teaching life skills to teenagers. It emphasizes the need to establish trust and open communication with teens, as well as teaching them skills such as planning, self-control, awareness, and adaptability. The podcast also highlights the importance of teaching teens about managing their medical care, basic household duties, finances, transportation, and asking for help. Practical ways to teach these skills are through bonding and relating them to the teen's interests. It is important for parents to know their child and their motivators to effectively teach these skills. Hello, my name is Ashley McDonald, and today I'm going to be doing a podcast on teaching life skills to teens. There are quite a few different life skills that are important for teenagers to know. First, I'm going to start with building that connection, because as a teenager, they are very proud and resilient and stubborn, and they often do not want to listen to what their parents tell them or do what their parents tell them. So something that's really important is to establish mutual trust between your teenager and yourself and your partner. If there's another parent, and this is not something that starts just once they become a teenager, it's something that you need to build as they grow up. But they need to know that they can trust that you will be open and honest with them within reason. Of course, some things teenagers don't need to know, children don't need to know, because those are parents' jobs and parents' worries. But the teenager needs to know that you are a safe person to turn to, that you are not going to explode at them if they do something bad or make a mistake, that you will be kind and understanding, and you will work with them, and you will help them move past whatever the issue is. So make sure you have that trust and communication with your child. Make sure that you're asking them questions about their lives. What are they interested in? What do they like? What do they want to do when they grow up? And then also being open in your communication with them about any issues or what's going on with your day, like, this really cool thing happened at work today, I really wanted to tell you, that was so exciting. Having that kind of connection and open communication builds a sturdy foundation that means your child knows that they can trust you, that they know you have good advice, and that you're telling them something for a reason. So moving on to what you want your child to know. There's a few different things that are really important for teenagers to know, and I'm going to break them down into just a couple different categories. So first, your child needs to know how to plan. This means being able to make and carry out concrete goals and plans. They need to know how to focus, focus on what's important, focus on what's not important, be able to prioritize. They need to know self-control, controlling how their emotional responses are, what their other responses are, and how to deal with stressful situations, because life is not going to be easy. Giving them awareness, teaching them awareness, being aware of the people around them, being aware of the situations they're in, being aware of what they need, what maybe their friends or family needs, and then teach them how to be flexible, how to adapt when they need. And these can apply to all different kinds of tasks and duties in life, right? So let's give some more examples to these. So something that teenagers and most people actually don't do very well is managing their medical care, right? So as a teen, they might already have some medical conditions, or they might not. They might, for now, be in perfect health. But they need to know what things to be aware of their body, what their body's feeling, what their body should feel like, what their body should not feel like. They should be able to plan, know how to make a doctor's appointment, know how to make a dentist appointment, know how to use self-control to brush their teeth and to floss every day, to take the medications that they might need, things like that. And then it's also really important that they learn basic household duties, right? Do they know how to cook for themselves? Do they know how to make healthy meals, meals that meet their nutrition goals and nutrition body requirements? Do they know how to do their laundry? Do they know how to clean up after themselves? These are all really important things that your teen needs to know. They need to know how to be clean and healthy and be able to survive on their own. Because once they do eventually move out, you won't be there to help them do the laundry, you won't be there to make dinner for them. They might have friends or roommates or a partner, but they still need to know how to take care of themselves because they can't always be relying on someone else to do these tasks for them. Another really important thing that I think is not very well taught by a lot of parents, and it's mostly probably because they don't know how to bring it up or they don't even think about it, right, is finances. How to teach your child how to use their finances, what finances are. They need to know what credit cards are. That's really important because a lot of teenagers enter into adulthood without knowing what a credit card is or what the purpose is or how to pay it off. They need to know budgeting. How are they going to pay for their rent? How are they going to pay for their car payment if they have a car? How are they going to buy groceries? How are they going to buy the school supplies that's needed in college? And you might be able to help them if you're in a position to provide them financial assistance. That is absolutely wonderful, but they still need these skills because at some point you won't be there to provide that financial assistance and you can't pay for everything all the time. They need to know how to be responsible, how to take care of those finances. They need to have self-control, not impulse buying whatever they want, not buying something just because they want it in the moment, buying something that they need and learning how to save for it. So that includes planning and focus and awareness of what they need, what they need to do, and everything like that, right? Transportation. Your child, in some places in the world or some cities, cars are not necessary, but they should know how to take care of a car. They should know how to properly drive a car, what to do if they're caught in a snowstorm, what to do if they blow a tire. They need to know how to change a tire. They need to know how to check their oil. They need to know how to take care of a car and know that if they get in a situation where maybe they can't call someone, they know they can handle it themselves. They can have the ability to solve their problem. If not, if this is an area where cars are not necessary, they need to know train systems and bus routes and how to buy a bus pass and how to transport safely and who to call in an emergency if there's an emergency on a bus or a train. They need to know how to contact the emergency services for that bus or train or anything. And then I think something that is incredibly important is they need to know how to ask for help. Because while they do need to know all these certain skills and they need to prepare and they need to try and do things on their own, they're still learning and it's not going to be an immediate switch from living in your parents' home to being on your own. They're going to need help and they need to know how to ask for help. They need to know when to ask for help. They need to be aware of their mental health and know that they can turn to you if they need help. You might not be able to solve their problem, but they need to know that they can come to you and you will do what you can. Right? So that's kind of a lot. That's kind of a lot of things and that's stressful, especially if you have other children in the home or you have some other life situations going on. You can't always be thinking about, oh, did I teach him how to change a tire? Oh, I didn't teach him how to properly cook chicken. He's going to get salmonella. It can be stressful and it can be hard, but it's okay because you're not going to be perfect at it and they're not going to be perfect at learning. You just need to know what your teen needs, pay attention, and do your very best to provide them with that. And give them, if they have questions, give them the answers. Help them. So what are some practical ways you can actually try and teach these skills and connect with your child? Because sometimes your kid doesn't want to learn how to change a tire or change the oil or they really don't want to cook today. So it's important to bond with them and build that connection and try and relate it to something they're interested in. Right? So if your child wants to go to the lake this summer, they want to go out, you might want them to be like, okay, well, we can go to the lake, but I need your help prepping the car. I need your help checking the oil, making sure the brakes look good, making sure the tires look good, making sure there's no leaks, and you can use that as an opportunity to try and teach them this skill. Or if they're, if cooking, let's say that's something you want to teach your child is how to cook. They're like, oh, I really want this today. That sounds like such a good meal, mom. Can you please just make that for dinner? And you're like, well, that does sound really good. I agree. But I'm also kind of tired and I know you're kind of tired, so why don't we work together and we can have this and it'll be so great and we'll get it done in almost half the time because we're doing it together and two hands, four hands are better than two. And I think it's also just important for you to know your child, know their likes, their dislikes, know what will get them motivated. Some children have different motivators than others. And I think as a parent, you know what that is and how to help your child.