As children grow they need to learn lots of skills. Below you will find resources to help you teach your child the skills they need as they grow up. The top life skills that families tell us they want to do by themselves are riding a bike, dressing, using a knife and fork and making a snack.
Here are our top 5 tips to help you when teaching new skills.
Choose the right time.
Set the 'Just Right' challenge.
Find what works for you and your child.
Keep it Fun!
Practice, practice, practice together
Learning to dress independently is an important life skill. Not only does it give the child a sense of achievement to master a new skill but also buys the parent a precious few minutes first thing in the morning!
Babies love to take their socks off they can usually manage this by themselves by the time they are 15 months old. Putting on socks is a skill that children can often find challenging particularly for those children who experience difficulties in using both of their hands together to complete a task.
Children learn to take their shoes off first and can usually pull on wellies, slippers and slip on shoes by the time they are 2 years old.
Learning to do fastenings can be tricky. Like many other skills children need to be taught how to do these activities. Below you will find videos and resources to support you to teach your child how to un/do zips, buttons and shoelaces.
Zips are usually the first fastenings that children learn to do. Their first zip is usually on their jacket. Children will need help to put the zip together to start with.
To un/do buttons, both hands need to work together but make different movements.
Here are some ideas about how to teach your child to do zips and buttons.
You can find more information on our Zips Information Sheet and our Button Information Sheet.
Learning to tie shoelaces is hard. Learning to tie laces before you need to wear shoes that need to be tied is a good idea. Children don't usually have the skills they need to be able to tie their shoelaces until they are between five and seven.
Tips for young people:
Tips for adults:
This video has some hints and tips and shows you different ways to tie your laces.
Find our step by step guides below:
is a good resource. It shows lots of different ways to lace shoes, tie shoelaces and stop shoelaces from coming undone.
As you move through school you might need to wear a school tie. You might just need a tie in school photographs or special occasions when you are at Primary School. Lots of secondary schools have a tie as part of the uniform and you might need to wear a school tie every day. It helps to be able to tie a tie by yourself so that changing for P.E. is not an issue.
Use the videos below to learn how to tie your tie.
Children begin to develop self-feeding skills from birth. Self-feeding is a very complex task and it is common for children to have difficulty using cutlery to feed themselves. It usually takes until a child is 7 years old before they can successfully use cutlery to feed themselves without being too messy.
Click here for more information on Eating
Learning to ride a bike is a complex task involving balance, motor skills and visual skills. There are lots of community resources that can help you teach your child how to ride their bike. It can be helpful to start with a balance bike.
If your child continues to find this challenging check our strategies for learning to ride a bike. This technique takes time, but the idea is that your child gets a sense of achievement from mastering each step one at a time.
There are also good videos for you to watch with your child