In a world that rewards hard technical skills and competency in exams, it’s our soft skills that get overlooked. Soft skills are essential in enabling us to enjoy life and thrive. In other words, overcome challenges and survive! At times when life may take an unexpected turn, our soft skill capabilities enable us to feel either optimistic or stressed.
Examples
- Communication: Good communication skills are important for interacting with others.
- Critical thinking: Critical thinking skills help people analyse, research, and identify the root cause of an issue.
- Adaptability: Adaptability is a key skill in today’s rapidly changing business landscape.
- Leadership: Leadership skills can be developed by organizing activities, resolving conflict, and teaching skills to others.
- Teamwork: Teamwork is a soft skill that is important for working with others
Soft skills are an essential part of life. There are many practical ways we can encourage children to think about and develop their soft skills that are accessible closer to home. Here are Inspiring Learning’s top ten tips:
Start the day well
Being more optimistic can transform everyday life. Reframe your day ahead each morning and consider challenges or trying something new as opportunities for growth. Perhaps encourage your child to start a journal with an intention or hope to reflect on throughout the day. Moving your body and doing something active at the start of each day, prepares the brain for learning. Physical movement also elevates your mood through the release of pleasure hormones called endorphins, setting the tone for the rest of the day.
Build a den
Playing with other children helps improve social skills and problem solve, and outdoor den building is a great place to start. By working together in a team to build a den, children are learning how to best express themselves, solve problems, negotiate and have greater self-awareness. They are also becoming more empathetic by understanding other children’s viewpoints, as well as more self confident in communicating their own.
Learn how to ride a bike, or other activity
Riding a bike is a challenge of effort and persistence that can also be a life lesson when faced with future challenges, such as, driving a car for the first time or passing a test. When riding a bike you’re setting yourself a goal, no matter how hard the challenge, it is something you can succeed at. This could be adapted to any activity, such as skateboarding or even fishing. Overcoming the difficulty of balancing or riding without stabilisers is a lesson with transferable gains.
Geocaching and exploration
Walking around your local neighbourhood is given new meaning when Geocaching is involved. Discovering local hidden treasures people have stashed away brings a rewarding feeling of self-confidence. Trusting your own instincts and finding something fascinating is truly enlightening. Handy apps found on the geocashing.com website provide cache locations, for example, under benches or in trees. This is a great activity to be creative, problem solve and become a detective for the day. Most importantly, don’t help children solve problems too much as you’ll restrict them from developing this skill themselves.
Build a bug hotel
Particularly fun for little children. Bug hotels increase the biodiversity outdoors while teaching about nature, being more empathetic and looking after the environment. It’s also a good activity for rainy days, as bug hotels can be made indoors and then left outside for local critters to set up home.
Camp and stargaze
A mini camping adventure in the garden is an ideal way to make a regular night into something memorable. Either with friends or family, children get so much out of setting up their own tent and being immersed in a natural environment. Sleeping outdoors overnight is great for resilience building, especially when there are adverse weather conditions. Telling stories or playing games under the stars is also a chance to build empathy and self-confidence whilst improving communication skills.
Environmental art and beachcombing
By combining art with raw materials found in nature, young people are inspired to take better care of their environment. Environmental art fosters creativity and self expression, as well as empathy. If you live near a beach, comb the shoreline for shells and take them home to wash and display in a bowl or in the garden. Watching marine life, the flowing waves, and breathing in the freshwater air improves wellbeing and helps manage stress.
Obstacle courses
When you’re next in the local playground or park with your children, consider the activities available and what your child could learn, as well as your own behaviour. Do you encourage them to climb up the apparatus or overly protect and deter them? There are often low beam obstacle courses, which are great activities for building resilience and overcoming challenges, with less risk involved. These, as well as other play equipment, create opportunities for children to problem solve, and improve communication skills and empathy with other children playing.
Watersports
From paddle boarding to hiring a boat, water-based sports are a great way to get children outdoors and engaged in being active. Find a nearby location, such as the coast or a local watersports centre, and have a go at a new activity on the water. Watersports provides so many opportunities to develop soft skills from the resilience of overcoming challenges to boosting self-confidence by recognising our own capabilities when having a go at something new..
Fruit picking
An activity for all seasons, but particularly summer with strawberries. Fruit picking gives children an appreciation for where their food comes from and their environment. It’s an activity where skills in compassion and empathy can flourish as children gain more of an understanding and care for nature and food waste. Creativity also comes into play when thinking about what to do with the fruit picked, for example, baking and decorating a strawberry meringue.
Inspiring Learning is looking to up-skill the nation’s soft skills by offering evidence-based experiences that create immediate and sustained positive change in behaviour, to enhance soft skills, fostering more resilient, positive, and effective workforces**. Alongside the Survival of the Softest Handbook, the outdoor learning experts have launched the virtual Softie Test so Brits of all ages can test themselves on the key 5 soft skills. And for those looking to build their children’s soft skills in real life, spaces are now available for the evidence based learning October half-term camps with Camp Beaumont.
For more information about Inspiring Learning and its soft skills development programs, visit