Soft skills are the social and personal skills we use every day. They include abilities like goal-setting, taking initiative, work ethic, and focus. For growing teens and young adults, these skills play an important role in achieving success at school, with friends, at work, and beyond.
One important point about soft skills is that they are universal. That means we use them in all areas of our lives, from learning in school to employment opportunities in the workforce. These skills even transfer from career to career (versus hard skills like knowledge of carpentry or computer programming languages). Since these skills are used so broadly, it helps make the case that soft skills should be taught and practiced in the school setting. With strategies and supports, we can help help prepare young learners for success during and after high school.
Building Soft Skills Together
We could all benefit from improving our ability to work with others, get started on tasks, problem-solve, and make good choices. The good news is that our soft skills aren’t set in stone. Just like improving math or reading abilities, soft skills can be learned and strengthened over time.
What are some ways we can build soft skills together?
- Modeling Skills – Kids and teens learn what they see in front of them. Adults can make it a point to practice skills for goal-setting, taking initiative, and showing responsibility on a regular basis.
- Group Discussions – Classroom and group discussions are an evidence-based learning strategy. Talk openly about soft skills with teens. Ask questions, discuss strategies, and allow time for discourse between students.
- Intentional Practice – Teens put their soft skills to use every day when working with others and solving problems. Make your practice intentional by discussing the soft skills they will be using before, during, and after activities. For example, when assigning students to work on a group reading project, remind your learners about what it means to show responsibility and work well on a team.
If you’re looking to get started teaching these skills right away, start with this Soft Skills Slide of the Day set. It includes 50 no-prep soft skills slides to help teach, discuss, and practice skills for success with your teens.
Here are 8 foundational soft skills every teen should know and build, along with some examples of what the skills look like in action.
Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is developing an understanding of yourself. This includes understanding your thoughts, feelings, motivations, behaviors, and hopes for the future. When you have a deeper understanding of how you feel and what you want, you can ultimately make better choices.
Self-awareness might look like:
- Understanding that you learn best by writing your ideas down in a notebook.
- Admitting to yourself that you need extra time studying your Spanish material before the test.
- Identifying that you feel frustrated while solving a problem, and then taking a break to help you calm down.
- Knowing that applying for the new position at work is important to you.
Goal-Setting
Goal-setting is the process of figuring out what you want to achieve and making a solid plan to get there. When you develop goals, they should be specific, measurable, action-oriented, relevant to your life, and time-based with a deadline to achieve your goal by.
Goal-setting in action looks like:
- Writing out a goal to improve your math grade, including actionable steps you can take like completing all assigned homework and staying after for extra help once a week.
- Using your whiteboard at home to write that you will clean your room by the end of the week.
- Deciding you want to make the soccer team this year and then coming up with a step-by-step plan to help you achieve that goal.
Growth Mindset
Having a growth mindset means believing you can build your skills with strategies, hard work, and persistence. Developing your growth mindset allows you to have a different view of yourself and the world around you; you embrace challenges, learn from mistakes, and keep working on your goals even if they’re not easy.
Some examples of growth mindset include:
- Learning and practicing new basketball techniques from your coach in order to improve your skills over time.
- Trying watercolor painting for the first time, knowing that you can grow and get better with practice.
- Repeating positive affirmations to yourself to encourage you during a challenge.
- Watching the way a colleague positive interacts with customers and learning from their approach.
Focus and Attention
Attention is your ability to focus on a person or task for a period of time. Every day, you use attention skills to learn, complete daily tasks, and connect with others. By building your attention strategies and techniques, you can open the door of possibilities to achieve your goals.
Examples of using strong focus and attention skills include:
- Listening intently while a friend tells you an experience that happened to them.
- Focusing on your teacher and their presentation in order to learn the new material.
- Paying attention to your boss as they give you instructions for what to do next.
- Focusing carefully as you draw to create an art project.
Responsibility
Showing responsibility means making good choices and being accountable for your own actions. Strong responsibility helps you to be a better team player and community member.
You might show responsibility by:
- Completing chores at home that you are expected to do.
- Following rules and expectations in the classroom.
- Being on time to work each day.
- Finishing your fair share of the group project on time.
- Admitting to breaking something by mistake and offering to fix it.
Taking Initiative
Taking initiative is getting started on tasks, jobs, and activities without being told. Instead of sitting around and waiting for someone else to prompt you, taking initiative puts you in the driver’s seat. When you take initiative, you become a proactive problem-solver.
Some real-life examples of taking initiative are:
- Taking out the trash when you notice it is full.
- Getting started on your homework assignment when you have a few minutes left at the end of class.
- Offering to help classmates on a math assignment after you finish early.
Work Ethic
Work ethic is the strong internal belief that your best quality work is important. Instead of doing a task to just check it off your to-do list, you make sure you do that task right. When you build your work ethic, you also build your perseverance skills. That’s because you don’t give up on a task or job until it’s done well.
Demonstrating strong work ethic looks like:
- Reviewing and revising your essay until you feel proud of your work.
- Arriving a few minutes early to a job interview, prepared with your resume.
- Practicing your presentation several times at home so that you do well when you present in front of others.
Self-Advocacy
Self-advocacy is the ability to speak up for yourself to get your needs and wants met. By self-advocating, you are also building skills for self-awareness, communication, problem-solving, and confidence.
You show self-advocacy skills by:
- Raising your hand to ask a clarifying question in class.
- Speaking to your boss to request a specific day off in the next month.
- Telling a friend that you prefer to stay in when they ask you to go out to a restaurant with them.
Working on Soft Skills
Whether we are talking about children, teens, or even adults, there is always room to grow our soft skills. You can start by discussing each of the skills and highlighting when learners may use them in their own lives. Then, practice them together. If you need a little boost, you can get started with a Soft Skills Slide of the Day to help introduce the concepts and learn together.
As always, remember that we are all learning and growing along the way.
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