life skills
Everyday essential abilities
Life skills are practical abilities needed to navigate daily existence—managing money, cooking, doing laundry, maintaining relationships, solving problems.
The term often appears in educational contexts, where programs teach young people competencies they might not learn at home: The high school added a life skills class covering budgeting and basic car maintenance.
Life skills can also include emotional capabilities like communication and conflict resolution.
- resilienceCapacity to recover quickly
- emotional intelligenceCapacity for managing feelings
- decision-makingProcess of choosing actions
- adaptabilityAbility to adjust readily
- empathySharing another's emotions
self-awareness · getting along · digital literacy · first aid · conflict resolution · cooking · meal prep · problem-solving · financial literacy · critical thinking · job readiness · job interview · budgeting · paying bills · goal setting · cultural sensitivity · personal hygiene · communication
- schoolingelementary school, school, middle school, high school, primary schools
- life skillsreading, writing, cooking, cleaning, laundry
- health educationhealth education, health curriculum, school health, health literacy, health videos
- practical learninghands-on, hands-on learning, learning by doing, experiential, vocational
- self-sufficiencyoff-grid, homestead, homesteading, subsistence, autarky
- prison programsGED classes, GED programs, vocational training, drug treatment, anger management
life skillsbook learning
Knowledge from study
abstract reasoning · esoteric knowledge · scholarly pursuits · pure theory · pure mathematics
life skillsincompetence
Lack of required skill
helplessness · learned helplessness · ineptitude · cluelessness · dysfunction
life skillsdependence
State of needing another
helplessness · codependence · immaturity · arrested development