The world is changing at such a rapid rate; the development of technology is influencing every part of society, from business to education and more! Caring for your family in the 21st Century extends further than proper nutrition and vitamins (in which best practices are also changing with the times!). To keep up with the latest information and trends, we encourage you to read more at Mommy Authority.

It’s more important than ever to instill skills that will be relevant in an ever-evolving world. These following 4 skills are known to be key characteristics that people need for a healthy and well-rounded development, helping them flourish in the future.

Critical Thinking

This skill allows people to have an objective analysis of something, effectively allowing the evaluation and judgment of said thing. It is a powerful tool that can be used for problem-solving and making significant life choices. By developing the skill of critical thinking in your home, you help your family grow the ever-important and empowering skill of reasoning. There are many ways that you can nurture this skill at home, such as:

• Promoting information fluency, which is the ability to differentiate between useful and non-useful information online.
• Asking open-ended questions and prompting deeper thought on answers given, encouraging an inquisitive environment that also emphasizes the need to be clear.
• Practicing ‘connecting the dots’ by asking children to explain how one paragraph of writing relates to another. This also promotes reading comprehension skills as well as the ability to extract important information and summarize.
• Using riddles to encourage deep thinking, problem-solving and listening comprehension.
• Exercising debates and pointing out how empathy, relevance, and framing can shift an argument.

Collaboration

To collaborate is to work with other people in order to achieve something. This skill is used in almost every aspect of society and promotes valuable qualities such as leadership, responsibility, adaptability, accountability, flexibility, and social skills. While the ways to exercise collaboration may be limited at home, you can help develop the skills that will make collaboration easier to practice, such as:

• Instilling conflict resolution skills as well as compromise.
• Improving self-awareness by keeping a journal and practicing daily reflection.
• Practicing setting achievable goals, such as getting all of the homework done before a certain time.
• Encouraging decision-making such as making choices, reflecting on why a choice was made, and reviewing if anything could be done to make a better choice.
• Promoting communication skills, such as the ability to say what you mean and mean what you say.

Communication

To effectively exchange information, showcasing a deep understanding of real-world data and tools rather than a shallow grasp – which may lead to ignorance, miscommunication, and conflict. Communication needs to have a solid base of topics such as global awareness, social development, environmental literacy, and business understanding in order to be relevant in the 21st Century. Developing communication skills includes practicing effective listening to decipher meaning and intention, as well as ensuring your family can understand the implications of tone and body language. It is also important to understand an international language and learn how to code.

Creativity

The secret sauce of imagination that is vital to inventions and innovations. Creativity is what will drive society and technology forward, changing the way we approach and handle various aspects of life. Apart from highlighting the importance of creativity as a skill and valuing creative work – these tips can help you promote creativity in your home:

• Provide readily available resources for creativity in varying colors and textures; from paints and crayons to wool and ephemeral.
• Be proactive and show your children a creative video or other media, then allow a period of free and uninterrupted time in which they can create whatever they want.
• Build a creative atmosphere like a room with different types of art on the wall, textured surfaces, smells, and whatever else you can think of to get the creative juices flowing.
• Encourage reading for pleasure.

These skills can be nurtured at home and implemented in all aspects of life. By developing them, you better prepare your family and yourself for whatever uncertainties and excitement the future may present.