Educational institutions are working on the formation of hard skills (or basic skills) in children. Soft skills — communication skills, teamwork skills, the ability to listen, speak and negotiate — are acquired through the social environment, hobbies and additional education. How to help a child develop them “at home”?
I consciously use the English term soft skills — in Russian there is not yet such a capacious concept that denotes both communication skills and negotiation skills, self-presentation, and speech skills. You won’t surprise anyone with basic knowledge anymore — you rarely meet a specialist without a diploma or an appropriate certificate. But communication skills are becoming increasingly important: a novice applicant gets into a job interview due to hard skills, but successfully passes it thanks to soft skills.
Since schools work on these skills on a residual basis, the responsibility for their development lies with the parents.
Children copy what adults do. Parents insist on the lessons learned, but do not show interest in the subject itself. They say: “Yes, I went to school N-tens of years ago, I don’t remember anything anymore,” and the students lose their desire to study. Another thing is when a new difficult task can be discussed together. Do not read «decide for the child» or «do homework together all the time» in this. Adult involvement shows the student that learning is an exciting process. That is why it is important for adults to improve soft skills together with the child.
Diverse communication
Communicate diversely for a child — be able to build communication with people of different ages: with peers, adults, younger and older children. Children constantly encounter peers at school, in extracurricular activities, even in the yard, watch how they themselves are divided into age groups. There are rarely problems here.
The most difficult thing for children is to communicate with other children who are younger or older than them.
Communication skills with adults are also trained daily with parents and teachers. Think about whether the child interacts with other adults, whether he can calmly go to a neighbor for salt, whether he will not be ashamed to ask for help from an unfamiliar passerby. If not, try artificially, but unobtrusively, to create situations where he could take the initiative and build communication with an unfamiliar adult. For example, entrust him to independently agree on something with the teacher of the section.
The most difficult thing for children is communication with other children who are younger or older than them. Previously, in large families, where «seven in shops», children learned to interact with younger and older brothers and sisters. Today, this opportunity is not available in every family.
This results in limited communications. I often come across a suspicious attitude of parents towards different age groups. This situation frightens them, because in adolescence, even one year of difference means a lot. Yes, for sure, the tasks in physics for grades 7 and 8 are different from each other. But additional education or the format of a city camp, where children are constantly supervised and busy with trainings with a qualified specialist, fill in the gap in communication skills with representatives of different ages.
Self-presentation
“Why do children need to be able to present themselves?” — you ask. They will get into a new team or will be interviewed, they will be asked to tell about themselves. It is important that the child is ready for this, so that he does not mumble indistinctly: “Well, I don’t know, I love football there and all that …”
Self-presentation is the golden mean between moderate bravado for the purpose of self-promotion and reasonable modesty. It is necessary to distinguish modesty from timidity. The first does not interfere, but decorates, and the second confuses and does not allow to reveal the strengths. Try artificially, but unobtrusively, to create a situation where the child will talk about his strengths without showing off. Observe how the reaction is, how confident the voice is, whether it finds the right words. Do not give advice, listen carefully, without the slightest irony, even if you want to smile.
Comment on what you liked — thus fix the good moments. Even if he failed to express or correctly formulate a thought, he himself will understand it without prompting. Discuss what qualities he would like to improve. The most valuable thing is to be positive, then, perhaps, new deep topics for joint conversations will open.
Negotiation Skills
Children encounter negotiation just as often as adults: at school and with their parents. How to distinguish a conversation from a negotiation? In the negotiation process, each side has its own goal, and the super-goal of the process is to reach consensus while maintaining the original principle by the parties.
Sometimes we do not think that we are negotiating with a child. For example, he asks to buy a new gadget, and the parent does not agree to buy “just like that” and tries to motivate him to success. The situation often develops into a banal argument. Instead, invite the child to sit down at the negotiating table, take a piece of paper and a pen, clearly articulate and write down the mutual problem and fix the solutions.
Write down all the proposals coming from both sides, even the absurd ones. This is important: the child will see how to respect someone else’s position, and will respond in kind. From the proposed ideas, select the appropriate ones — this will help to come to a mutually beneficial agreement.
Intelligible and clear speech
A fundamental component of mindful listening is what you say and how you say it. One confidence in the voice is not enough. Speech technique is a component that needs to be painstakingly worked on in order to achieve a result.
First, the foundation of the basics is correct breathing, which helps during public speaking. Try to breathe diaphragmatically, with your stomach: on inhalation, the stomach inflates, on exhalation, in the process of speaking, the stomach is pulled back.
This method of consciously controlled breathing will help you sound confident, remove the “squeakiness” in your voice, and speak in one breath for longer than usual. Mastered diaphragmatic breathing on your own? Teach this to your child. You can even compete who will speak longer in one breath. By the way, this breathing practice will help to cope with the fear of speaking: start thinking only about the diaphragm, about inhaling and exhaling, turn off your head from the upcoming test. It turns out a kind of meditation that helps to forget about stage fright.
The speech apparatus must be “pumped” with the help of exercises
Secondly, after diaphragmatic breathing, proceed to diction. Lots of useful information can be found on YouTube. Speech apparatus: lips, teeth, tongue and jaw must be “pumped” with the help of exercises. They will get rid of the «porridge in the mouth» and clamped jaw. Also practice intelligible speech in pure speech. Pure tongue twisters, not tongue twisters, because the primary task is not to speak quickly, but clearly and understandably.
I propose to play with the child in the announcer of the central television. Download the text from the tongue twister “On Thursday the fourth day …” and try to read the complex words as if you were conveying hot news. At the same time, pronounce the words and convey the meaning of, at first glance, a delusional text. Words will be given with difficulty, reaching the end of the text is not easy, but a reason to laugh heartily is provided.
The topic of developing soft skills in children is deep and multifaceted. These tips will help you get started with the process.