Why school children need soft skills training?

Soft skills are the consciously developed people skills and character traits that determine how we interact with others. They include skills such as time management, empathy and self-confidence. They’re different from hard skills, which are physical skills like building a fence, or technical skills like mastering software.  

But do school children need them? After all, kids interact with peer group and elders, and move around in a much more limited circle than adults. Why would they need to get beyond saying ‘thank you’ and ‘please’ at the right places? Well, soft skills are not the same as etiquette. Learn more about it all below.  

High demand 
Dell Technologies estimated in 2019 that 85% of the jobs that would be around in 2030 haven’t even been invented yet. How do you pick up a programming language that is yet to be developed or use a machine still on paper? On the other hand, you would definitely want a workforce that is open to learning these new hard skills, make mistakes, recover, and go on. In other words, soft skills would always be in demand.  

Makes kids future ready 
They’re desirable to employers because they show whether someone will fit into the workplace, both as an individual and a team player. What’s more, soft skills build leaders and entrepreneurs as they encourage independent thinking.  

Promotes stronger personal relations  
Soft skills teach better communication. For kids, communication is not just reading, writing, listening and speaking well. It’s also the ability to convey through gestures, be concise and respectful, understand what should be said where and to whom to be maximally effective and make an overall impact. Going forward, this will play a big role in relationship dynamics. 

 Inspires negotiation, conflict resolution, critical thinking 
There’ll be many situations in your kids’ lives where they will need to negotiate or resolve conflict, or simply trouble shoot. Being persuasive yet sensitive will help them win over. Once their critical thinking skills are clear, they would be able to move in a logical way towards solving something, while keeping their calm, and maybe even gaining the confidence of others.