What do you consider as essential life skills?

[IndependentAdjudicator]

You're now a parent.
How do you go about equipping your child to be confident in the real world?

On a human level, knowing when to walk away is an important life lesson.
And the ability to acknowledge, and own up to your mistakes.

Teaching kindness and compassion to others and not being judgey (be it other children at school, people with disabilities or people in low paid jobs).

Understanding and appreciating the value of money and that it doesn’t grow on trees and has to earned and learning to budget and if you spend on this can’t spend on that.

Learning to cook and clean.

Organisation and communication.

Basic DIY
Learning to swim
Budgeting and financial skills
Cooking and nutrition
Learning to drive
Good hygiene
Being neat and organised

To understand how to make a fire, how to plant, prune and graft trees, how to plant seeds, how to make your own meals from scratch, how to use your body (may sound obvious but plenty can't even ride a bike), how to swim, how to fish.

To be able to:
Swim
Drive
Cook
Clean
Wash clothes properly
Navigate different personalities that you’ll encounter
Be kind even in trying circumstances
Know when to walk away
Hold your own in conversation

Yes to map reading - you can't always rely on a phone signal when walking or driving.

Financial literacy for sure. Credits cards, loans, interest rates, compound interest for savings and pensions. Mortgages. Investments. Understanding the financial implications of marriage. Being clear on when debt is shared and when it isn't, implications of taking on debt for others etc. Protect them against being financially exploited.

Critical thinking. Being able to e.g. assess whether the job they'd love to do is compatible with the lifestyle they'd like to have, and adjusting accordingly. Whether that thing in the news is in any way reasonable. Whether the offer someone made you is reasonable or not.

Learning how to learn effectively, so that throughout their life they can acquire new knowledge and skills as they need them. Learning how to research anything they might need to know, and which sources to trust (not purely academic, life skills in all forms, holidays, financial info, new cars, recipes, DIY etc etc).

Self confidence. Knowing that they have value innately, and don't need to people please to feel wanted.
And relatedly, not to take things personally, because everyone is wrapped up in their own life and whatever behaviours you see, they're probably not about you.

Negotiation skills - almost everything in life is a negotiation between your wants and needs and the other person's wants and needs.

Positive psychology - tools and strategies to be and stay happy, resilient and thriving.

How to eat, sleep and exercise healthily and find ways that you love to do these - you only have one body, and when it stops being healthy, everything else becomes harder, so learn all the skills and habits to keep it as healthy as possible for as long as possible. Also basic medical care/first aid, meditation, etc for the same reasons.

When DD is older, I’d love it if she was able to look at a piece of media propaganda and analyse it. E.g. “That study on climate change was funded by a US oil company, so is a biased source.” “That statistic has been cherry-picked from this study and the full results give a very different picture”. “These are all examples of biased, emotive language”. And always to ask: Who wrote this? Who paid for it? What do they want us to do? Who benefits?

Cooking, including planning what to cook, buying the ingredients within a budget, washing up afterwards(!), making use of leftovers etc.
How to clean, do laundry, basic home maintenance.
How to look for, and apply for jobs
How to make a fire, how to forage (which berries and mushrooms are safe to forage. Though in my mind no mushrooms are safe, because they are all disgusting)
How to swim
How to ride a bike, ski, and ice skate (for real, these three are on the list of milestones in the baby book you get given when you give birth in my country. They are expected to learn these around age 6 btw)

And recognise the difference between human- and AI-created content. I fear that is going to become increasingly hard to do.

The other week I was asked if I had used AI to create something. I hadn't, but then I wondered if the piece I had used to write my article had been AI-generated!

Critical thinking.
Cooking.
Having excellent manners.
Listening.
Basic maths.
The ability to be alone happily.
Did I mention critical thinking?

@dynamiccactus I like to think that as AI consumes and regurgitates increasing amounts of its own content, it will eventually disappear up its own bottom.

Sewing a button on
Touch typing
Cooking
Shopping on a budget
Changing a tyre
Saying sorry
Saying I Iove you
Understanding APR
Letting someone else speak
Using a washing machine
Helping others
Not everyone wants/needs to be rich
Kindness is everything

I failed with one DC on APR!

Absolutely brilliant post. More about equipping yourself with skills and attributes rather than learning "things". After all, in this internet age, it's very easy to research for facts and how to do stuff, but the real skill is knowing how to research!

Good phone manner
Good email manner
Asking for help in a shop or service.
How to understand a trip switch, turn off water at the mains, how to contact all emergency services.
Grocery shopping.
Budgeting.
Organisation of personal stuff, how to declutter, segregate, organise etc.. it comes naturally to some but very difficult for others
Laundry, cooking, cleaning.

Reading and writing
swimming
driving (when old enough - even if you don’t have a car yet, at least learn how to)
being polite and having good manners
time management
sticking to commitments
being punctual
Cooking and preparing healthy food
money management

Budgeting, my DDs get monthly pocket money and it has to last.

Judging people on how they treat you and others. When they show you who they, are believe them. They are still learning through difficult friendships but they have thick skins and decent boundaries which I've helped develop.

Time keeping, my DDs have to get themselves up and out on time for school and college since Y7. No excuses.

As well as the usual cooking, cleaning and being able to use a washing machine, I'd add transport. Being able to work out how to get yourself to and from somewhere safely (one of the reasons I didn't give my children lifts very often, I wanted them to be confident in doing this).

How to choose the right people to surround yourself with,including a partner or husband and how to financially take control of your life. In my view crack those two and the rest falls into place.

Driving, swimming, cooking (and reading and arithmetic - shouldn’t need to be said but sadly too many adults have poor literacy and numeracy).

Having a good work ethic is definitely another.

I think we need to drop "changing a tyre" from essential life skills, now that most cars no longer have a spare wheel.

Knowing that sometimes things are not fair and you just need to suck it up and make the best of it.

Learning from your mistakes so you don't repeat them.

I find MN to be very extreme in favour of driving. It's not necessary if you live in a city or even a big town if it's on the train line.
Typing I'm not sure will be useful in a few years... We already have voice to type technology.

Preparing nutritious food
Having at least basic IT skills
Driving
Doing laundry
Cleaning effectively
Loading a dishwasher properly
Being able to bake a cake comes in handy!