six life skills for the next gen
Photo by Suzy Brooks on Unsplash
I subscribe to quite a few newsletters and substacks so I can read about new topics, challenge my thinking, and learn a thing or two. The subject line '6 skills these CEO parents are teaching their kids' popped up in my inbox recently and I was intrigued. Mainly because I had just posted a few prompts from our Family Deck across our socials that are targeted at kids, and because September is a time of fresh starts and new beginnings for them.
The newsletter was Stephen Bartlett's '100 CEOs' and I'll summarise below the six skills listed along with my thoughts. Let me know if you resonate with any of them and if you would add any others. As a society, we're constantly having to evolve with the times when it comes to raising the next gen with intention and care so all insights are welcome.
Money management: a better understanding of financial literacy.
Absolutely. I'm a millenial and would have really appreciated a few basic lessons on investing and mortgage interest rates so I'm not googling it in my thirties and asking people to explain it to me 'in simple terms'.
Consistency and kindness: work hard and treat people well.
Sounds simple but so important to treat people as you want to be treated and be nice on your way up. People really notice unkind and fake people.
Independent confidence: trusting your decisions and navigating life.
Agree. Figuring your way through life means making tough decisions and owning what comes next, good or bad. I wish I trusted my gut more when I was younger but I think the next gen are more in tune with the type of life they want and really go for it.
Storytelling: being able to sell yourself, your ideas and influence others.
Whether it's persuading your parents to buy you a certain gift or meet up with friends, being able to convince people and state your reasoning is a crucial skill. This then turns into acing a job interview, getting that promotion, gaining traction for a new business, and so on.
Emotional self-regulation: understanding how to react to situations.
I don't remember this being spoken about much when I was growing up but so important for kids to understand how to express and navigate their emotions. Same goes for the adults who interact with them.
Algorithmic self-defence: questioning what you're being fed online.
The term sounds weirdly complexed, but this one is crucial. Not believing everything you see or hear on socials and critically thinking about the information you're being fed and why this could be.
Parents, educators, and to my readers - what do you think of the list? Are we missing anything or do you strongly agree or disagree with any of them? Let's talk about it and learn from each other. After all, it takes a village.
