The goal of education is to prepare children for life. However education doesn’t just happen in the classroom, parents can start at an early age!

Teaching your children important life skills while they are young can have drastic impacts on their preparedness for the upcoming stages in their lives. We can’t teach them everything, but there are a few critical areas that can really help them develop and succeed.

Here are a few important skills to teach your kids in 2019 to help them succeed in the years to come!

Understanding finances

Children won’t be fully in charge of their own finances anytime soon. Even though it may not be necessary to explain tax benefits and mutual funds to a seven-year-old, you can still help them understand finances at a basic level to give them a head start.

Letting them handle cash payments in a store is a simple starting point. You can make sure they are familiar with coins and bills and that they understand their value, which is also an excellent opportunity for real world mathematics.

After you’ve taught them about handling money, you can introduce an allowance to help them understand the importance of savings. Explain that the money can buy toys and games or even donated to the less fortunate. Show them all the cooler things they could get if instead of spending the money right away, they held onto a few allowances to build up some savings.

Physically separating the money can help them see and know how much is being putting aside for different purposes. For example give them jars to separate their money into: one for spending, one for saving and one for charity. In addition to physically seeing where there money goes each week, this gives them personal access to and responsibility over all of it.

It may even make get them interested in learning ways to make money, like a lemonade stand!

Coding and technology

Computer skills are necessary in the modern age. Kids are often naturally tech savvy, but typing and coding are two skills that require more effort to learn.

Coding is simply the process of telling a computer how to complete a task through programming languages. Like with traditional language learning, it’s great to start early. Some schools offer basic intros, but looking for outside resources is becoming an increasingly common decision, and it isn’t as hard to tackle as you may think.

David Dodge, CEO of Codakid: “Coding for kids can no longer be viewed as an obscure topic that can wait until college. Coding should instead be seen as a twenty-first century literacy as important as math and physical science. Even if they don’t go into computer science, it will prove to be helpful in any field.”

Even if your child does not go into a tech career, learning to code can develop many other skills like problem solving, creativity, and teamwork. Exposing your children to the world of computer science this year will be a great way to make sure they get ahead!

Gaining responsibility through household chores

Giving your child more responsibilities may appear to be more work than its worth, but it helps them to better appreciate the value of a well-run home. These responsibilities can also tie into the first tip by linking them to their allowances, showing them that hard work can also come with rewards.

By having your child help with tasks like dishes, yard work, cooking and more, they not only come to understand what is needed to keep their homes in order later in life, they learn how to do these tasks effectively and efficiently. There are many children who leave home and don’t know how to properly do laundry or clean their bathrooms, a flaw that is somewhat embarrassing at best and detrimental to their hygiene at worst.

You can start off by giving simpler tasks like cleaning and tabling setting to younger children and, as they age, move them towards jobs like taking out the trash and cleaning the bathroom.

It may take more time for you to explain it and monitor, but it is time well spent!

Get started today

Everyone parents differently, but we all want the best for our children. It is a mistake to rely just on the school to educate, there are many lessons parents provide right in their own home. I hope these tips provide a valuable starting place.

Let’s make 2019 a year of learning and productivity! And if you want help with coding education, contact Breakout Mentors today.