Teens should leave home and head to college or career with a sense of who they are and the life skills to start adulting. We’ve compiled a list of the top life skills that teens need to be successful in relationships, work, home, and life in general. Adulting is hard, so give teens a running start with these 42 skills.

The Benefits of Life Skills for Teens

When computer skills, AI, and even basics like reading comprehension are so important and take up a lot of time, life skills can feel like an afterthought. But they shouldn’t be. Teaching life skills benefits all teens. 

Life skills are those skills that help people make good decisions, solve problems, build healthy relationships, and manage their daily lives. So, yes, they’re super important. Here are other benefits to teaching life skills: 

• Self-awareness: Life skills, like choosing a job or other decision-making, help teens understand who they are and what they want in the short and long term. 
• Improved mental health: Concerns about young people’s mental health have been increasing. When teens have the skills and confidence to manage what life throws at them, whether that’s a pile of laundry or a new relationship, they’re better able to maintain positive mental health. 
• Financial skills: When teens understand how to manage money, make a budget, and make good financial decisions, they’re better prepared for the future. 
• Healthy relationships: Good listening skills and understanding how to set boundaries in a healthy way are skills that youth need to form healthy relationships at work and home. 
• Good decision-making: It’s a skill, and teens make more and more decisions on their own as they get older. Life-skills training helps them make good decisions and feel confident in their decisions. 
• Critical thinking: Especially in the world that teens are graduating into, they need critical thinking skills when managing social media, friendships, and school. 

Here’s our list of important life skills all teens should know.

Daily Living Skills

1. Doing laundry

Start with the basics like how to sort colors and read the labels. Discuss why some clothing items should be washed differently. Don’t forget to teach teens how to use a washing machine and dryer. What is each button for and how does the timing work? You’ll want to cover the benefits of air drying and the purposes of detergent, fabric softener, bleach, and stain remover. This is also a good time to reinforce finishing something you start: It’s better to do one load from dirty to folded and put it away than wait until later to finish folding and putting it away.

• Put your child in charge of their own laundry, from choosing a laundry basket to managing it before the laundry pile has gotten out of hand.
• Help your child manage this task by posting a laundry checklist they can review each time it’s time to wash their clothes.

2. Shopping for groceries

The best way to show your children how to grocery-shop is to invite them to go with you. Start with developing a grocery list based on foods they always eat and recipes they want to make. Deepen the learning by discussing the concept of meal plans and nutrition considerations. In the store, discuss how to choose the best fruits and vegetables and how the perimeter aisles of the grocery store are where you should focus your shopping because that’s typically where the fruits, vegetables, meat, and dairy products are.

• Put your child in charge of dinner one night a week. They’ll have to plan a meal, write the grocery list, and cook. Give them a budget so they can practice budgeting skills too.

3. Cooking

Now that your teens know how to get the food into the house, it’s equally important to know what to do with it. Instead of making all the meals yourself, include your teens in meal prep, cooking, and cleanup. Share the cookbooks and online resources you use for recipes and meal ideas. Ask them to find a recipe they’d like to make, and let them loose in the kitchen.

• Plan an event as a family and put your child in charge of one or two aspects of the food. For example, if it’s a barbecue, they can make potato salad. If it’s a baby shower, they can make cupcakes.

4. Cleaning the kitchen

Once teens have learned how to cook, cleaning the kitchen is the next logical step. It’s about more than cleaning up after yourself: It’s about seeing a task through and making sure the kitchen stays critter-free. Teach your teen how to load and unload the dishwasher, tips for washing dishes, and how to start at the top (counters) and work your way down to the floor.

• Provide your child with a checklist they can reference when they clean the kitchen so they don’t forget to sweep the floor or wipe down the microwave.

5. Cleaning the house

After they clean the kitchen, they can move on to the rest of the house, from dusting to vacuuming. Assign chores to different members of the family and rotate so everyone gets a turn. As much as we tell teens why it’s important to keep a clean house, actually doing it themselves will help them understand what’s involved. This will pay off later in life when they live with others or invite people over to their house.

• Cleaning the house is a big job. Scaffold this task by having teens start with a zone, their bedroom, the kitchen, or den. Then, add on different zones until they are tackling an entire floor.
• Help your child understand how they work best by trying out different strategies. They can play music while they work, tackle rooms in a specific order each time, or listen to an audiobook.

6. Managing money

Money is still an abstract concept for many teens. Teaching budgeting, saving, and managing money now will help them for years to come. Mastering financial literacy skills comes from having an allowance, budgeting for things you want, understanding how credit cards work, and saving money for a school trip or for college. Managing finances is possibly one of the most important life skills for teens to learn. After all, starting off on the right course can help avoid digging yourself out of a deep hole in the future.

• Today’s teens can benefit from financial apps to think through money management. Check out these financial literacy apps to find the right one.
• Have teens practice money management with a pretend budget or a budget for a small task, like a weekend vacation or family event. Once they have managed a small amount of money, they can move on to larger amounts.

Learn more: Financial Literacy Books for Kids and Teens

7. Managing credit

Start small with this skill. Have teens borrow money from you to help them create a plan to pay it back, learn about interest, and stick with the payment plan even when it’s hard. This is a lesson that’s best taught when teens are working with small amounts of money.

• Before getting a teen a credit card, have them manage a small amount of credit. They buy something on credit from you, then create and follow a plan to pay you back. Along the way, talk through why it’s so challenging to pay off credit.

8. Swimming

Swimming develops great body awareness, and it expands the ways that teens can have fun safely. This is one of those life skills for teens that is best left to the experts, but it’s important to find the right teacher. Some teens might prefer to be private about learning and some will enjoy a group lesson. For teens who didn’t learn to swim early on, this will also be a lesson in overcoming challenges.

• Check out swimming lessons in your area as sometimes it’s a good idea to have an expert teacher.
• As your child learns to swim, have them record the strokes and skills they’ve learned so they can see their progress.
• If your teen is reluctant to learn to swim or is late to swimming, set a goal—swimming in the ocean, snorkeling, etc.—that they can work toward to maintain motivation.

9. Searching for a job

Finding a job is hard for a skilled adult with lots of experience, but for a teen it can feel impossible. Take this one point-by-point, addressing tools for finding a job first. No matter how young a tween or teen is, they can still develop a decent resume. The important thing to remember is not to compare your teens to others you know. Instead, build upon your teen’s strengths. Once you’ve both brainstormed strengths, come up with age-appropriate internships or jobs they can apply for.

• Have your teen interview five different people about their jobs. What does each person do? How did they get their job? Does your teen think they would like to pursue any of those jobs?

10. Reading a map

Yes, GPS is wonderful. But knowing how to use a map helps teens make good decisions when they’re traveling. Start by discussing the different parts of a map and the common symbols you may find. Compare a phone mapping app to a paper one. And when you’re traveling, apply your knowledge of maps and locations to figure out shortcuts or alternate routes.

• Go to a local rest stop or nature center and pick up an old-fashioned paper map. Plan a trip using that map and challenge yourselves to finish the trip without opening a map app.

Learn more: 20 Ways for Kids To Learn Map Skills

11. Taking public transportation

Taking a bus or train with ease literally makes the world available teens. Teach them how to find and read timetables, map routes, and how to buy tickets. Don’t forget to reinforce safety in public spaces and what they should do if they feel unsafe.

• Have your teen plan a day using only public transportation. What can they visit? How do they get there? What challenges might they encounter? It’s a great exercise to learn your local transportation system and deal with any challenges that come up, including the boredom of waiting.

12. Making basic repairs

Gather a supply of everyday tools and go through them with your teens. Teach them what each tool is for and how to use it. You might even think about putting together a basic tool kit for them to call their own. Of course, the most fun way to teach kids is to do a project together. Think of a project that would be meaningful for both of you—perhaps a free little library—and instruct as you build together.

• Ask a local technician or carpenter if your child can shadow them for a day or a few hours. They’ll see how tools work and learn about a job they might like to work in.

13. Managing their health

Staying healthy might not be something that teens are thinking about, but knowing the basics—drinking enough water, wearing sunscreen, getting some activity each day—goes a long way. You can also teach kids how to make their own doctor’s appointments, advocate for themselves at the doctor, and track their health stats (weight, blood pressure, etc.). After all, when it comes to health, patterns learned in childhood set the course for young adults to thrive. True, bad patterns can be overcome, but having a strong, healthy foundation gives kids a head start as they approach adulthood.

• Make a wellness check and have your child write questions for the doctor ahead of time. Get all the printouts and have your child choose one wellness stat to track, like the amount of physical activity they get each day or the number of fruits and vegetables they eat.

Learn more: Reasons To Talk About Underage Drinking Prevention

Executive-Functioning Skills

14. Organization

Teens need help when it comes to developing life skills like organization. It’s tempting to organize for them, but teens need time and practice (and more practice) to build organization skills. Show them different ways of organizing things, from their laundry to their to-do list, and let them figure out what works best for them.

• Take a look at organization tools, like planners and calendars, and try one out. The key is for your teen to find a system that works for them.
• Organization can take many forms. Choose one area of your child’s life to organize. It could be their closet or desk, their activities, or their homework. Once they’ve mastered that, move on to the next area.

Try it: Ultimate Study Skills Guide

15. Time Management

When it comes to college and career, time management is everything. Talk with your teen about what schedule works best for them. What tasks are most important and should be done first? What can wait until later? And how will they organize their time to allow for enough time in the day?

• Use color coding to organize tasks and decide how much time to spend on each task.
• Create a space for your child to put their phones and other devices when they need to focus and avoid multitasking.

Learn more: Effective Time Management Strategies and Tools for Students

16. Starting a task

The ability to start a task is an underrated skill. Teach teens how to break overwhelming or unpopular tasks into smaller chunks and get started so they can complete all their work and aren’t bogged down with procrastination.

• When your teen has a few tasks to do, have them write them on note cards and put them in order from least to most desirable. Then, have them tackle the least desirable task first.

17. Persistence

Once teens are able to start tasks, sticking with them, even when they are hard or boring, is another important skill. Breaking large tasks into smaller chunks helps teens complete multistep activities. And teach teens how to take breaks so they don’t get too frustrated or overwhelmed.

• Use the Pomodoro technique. Set a timer to work for 20 minutes, then take a 5-minute break. The trick is to return to the task after that 5-minute break.

18. Social media use

Social media can quickly take over a teen’s (or anyone’s) day. Make sure your teen has personal boundaries around social media. Setting and sticking to rules that matter to your teen will help them manage their interactions online in healthy ways.

• Learn more about how your teen is using social media by tracking their use across an average week. Then, set a goal for how to improve their social media use. Implement a plan, then track social media use again to see how it changes.

Learn more: Best Books About Social Media

Try it: Guide to Digital Stress and Social Media Addiction

19. Choosing a career

Help teens learn the important life skills of knowing themselves and how they want to spend their time. Talk with them about what makes them excited. Making decisions? Leading a team? Working with math? Writing? Once they have a good feel for who they are, they can start exploring careers that use those skills and involve topics they’re interested in.

20. Volunteering

Teaching teens to give back is teaching them empathy and instilling a value of service. Start by finding a volunteer organization that your teen cares about and finding ways they can contribute.

• Volunteering is a matter of finding what’s out there and committing. Call local organizations, follow them on social media, or check out these online opportunities.

21. Searching online

Teens will be searching for everything from recipes to research. Teach them how to think about what they really want to learn about online so they can draft just the right search terms.

• Give teens a list of prompts they can use to search online, or prompt AI and talk through what they find. Which prompts were most helpful? How do they know the information they got was credible?

22. Evaluating sources

After they’ve searched online, teens need to know how to evaluate the information they find. Knowing how search engines deliver information, which sources are reputable, and what to do if you find unreliable sources online are all vital skills for today’s teens.

• Have your teen research and make a list of credible sources (news sites, encyclopedias, etc.). Then, they can start with those sources each time they need to research.

23. Making decisions

Teens are entering a time of life when they start to make decisions daily, from who to spend time with to what extracurriculars to invest time in to when to go to bed. Help teens define each decision, the stakes (high or low), the options, and which option is best for them.

• Give your teen decision-making power for the day. They can decide everything from how to spend money (using a set amount of money) to where to go and what to eat.

24. Setting goals

Knowing what they want is sometimes half the battle. Help teens set a clear goal they can focus on and that is achievable for them, whether that’s making the swim team, earning a scholarship, or getting into a college they love.

• Teach your child about SMART goals and have them write a SMART goal that can take them a week or a month.
• Choose a goal-setting quote or two to post in your teen’s room.

25. Making a plan

And when they have their goal, teach teens how to create a plan with manageable steps to help them achieve their goal. The practice of goal-setting and planning is one that they’ll take with them long into adulthood.

• Once teens have a goal, they need to track their progress. Check out these ways to do goal-setting with students to find a way to set and track a goal, from doing homework every day to accomplishing a goal in sports.

26. Regulating emotions

In many ways, if teens can’t regulate their emotions, it doesn’t matter if they can’t set goals or make a plan. Teach teens to talk about their feelings, and how they can respond when they are feeling “high” (giddy, excited, angry) or “low” (sad, lethargic, apathetic). When situations arise, reflect on how your teen handled the scenario and what they can do differently next time.

27. Being flexible

The ability to switch course and change plans is a helpful one as teens navigate friendships and the workplace. Point out when your teen is being flexible, and if they’re not naturally flexible, point out how it’s good for them to change plans or be flexible when necessary.

• Each time your teen is flexible, write it down on a piece of paper and put the paper in a jar. This will help them visualize just how often they have to be flexible and how important it is!

28. Coping with failure

Failure is hard for anyone, but failure leads to success. And when teens can reflect and learn from failure, they’ll come out on top. Teach healthy self-talk. Praise your teen’s effort instead of their achievement. Talk about failure and be a model for dealing with it. Share your own failures.

• Working through failure is a great opportunity for journaling. Buy your teen a small journal to record and reflect on their failures.

Communication Skills

29. Starting a conversation

Teens need to know life skills like how to start a conversation with someone new, as well as how to initiate conversation with someone they have known for a long time. Model this by engaging in small talk, or if your teen needs more structure, give them some ideas (introduce yourself, start with a compliment, ask a relevant question).

• Practice starting conversations with icebreakers in formal and informal situations. You never know when an icebreaker question may come in handy.

30. Listening

Once they’re talking, teens also have to listen. Active listening (looking at the speaker, nodding and smiling, asking questions) is a helpful skill to practice.

• In class, teachers use a fishbowl conversation to practice observing and discussing conversation, including listening.

31. Talking on the phone

It seems old-fashioned now, but being able to answer a phone call and politely taking or declining the call is something that will serve teens well.

• Go old-school and have your teen make phone calls for household activities, like ordering food, following up on a piece of mail, or asking a question.

32. Texting

Sending texts may be their preferred method of communication, but teens do need to know the dos and don’ts of texting. Create a set of rules about texting, with a focus on how to respond to annoying or inappropriate texts. When should a teen bring a text to an adult or friend for advice? How long should they wait before responding to a text that makes them mad? And at what point should they respond with a phone call?

• Create a family list of text etiquette. Then, reinforce it with your texts with your child.
• Review some recent texts with your teen. Read them in different voices and tones. How do they know what their friend meant?

33. Self-advocacy

Self-advocacy or standing up for themselves means knowing their personal values and boundaries, and speaking up clearly when someone has crossed their boundaries. Writing their list of values is a good starting point. And talking through open-ended scenarios to discuss how they would handle each helps teens develop advocacy skills.

• The next time your teen has a conflict, talk through how to advocate. Create a plan and rehearse the conversation they need to have. For example, if your child needs to meet with a teacher at school to advocate for themselves, create a script they can use, but don’t go with them.

34. Saying no

There are times when a teen will have to say no to something. Knowing how to say no in a firm, kind way and when to walk away from a situation are skills that could literally save a teen’s life.

• Write a few scenarios that your teen may encounter, like leaving a party early or saying no to a friend. Then, practice how to say no in each scenario. And make sure your teen has a plan to leave any scenario if they’re uncomfortable.

35. Sending mail

Yes, teens should know how to send “snail” mail. Even if it’s sending packages to Grandma, knowing how to organize mail, address an envelope, and where to go if they need to send a larger package is a skill they’ll use more than they think.

• Write letters to older family members.
• When you’re on a trip, seek out postcards and send them instead of texts.
• Have your child sell some of their old and unused toys or books. They’ll have to package and ship each item.

At some point, if they haven’t already, teens will interact with the police, firefighters, or other community helpers. Teach your teen the skills they need to have an appropriate interaction with community helpers. And make sure they have a plan to get help if they need it.

• Point out the various community helpers that your child may run into—police officers, firefighters, etc.—and give your child the information they need to interact. Your child may not know how to remain calm, or when to stay quiet instead of speaking up, so take a moment to coach them.

Safety Skills

37. Making decisions about drugs and alcohol

Making good choices about drugs and alcohol is one of the most important life skills you can teach teens. When it comes to making decisions about tobacco, alcohol, and drugs, kids and teens need explicit guidance. Smoking, drinking, and drugs are bad ideas, full stop. Teens need to know why but also how to handle it if someone offers them drugs or alcohol. Practicing a script at home can give teens the words they need to establish boundaries.

• When you’re talking about drugs, focus on honesty and the behaviors you do and don’t want your teen to engage in. Come up with a plan for how your teen will get in touch with you if they either make a mistake or are in a situation they need out of now.

38. Driving

It’s a teen right of passage, but driving is risky business. Invest in a driving course and spend lots of time practicing in parking lots and on back roads so teens can develop the core driving skills.

• Model safe driving when you’re in the car with your teen. Point out what you’re doing when you slow down at a roundabout or come across a surprise animal on the road so your teen can learn.

39. Using ride-share services

Ride-share services are a great way for teens to get around, but they should know how these services work and how to be safe. Read the rider safety tips for the app you download onto your teen’s phone, and encourage them to always let you or someone else know where they are going.

• When your teen downloads a ride-sharing app, make sure that you can supervise their rides, as Uber allows parents to do.

40. Basic first aid

Knowing how to respond to even small incidents can make teens feel empowered to help others. Enroll in a first-aid course, teach your teen what you know about first aid, and let them be the first-aid responder for the family. If someone needs a bandage or gets too hot, how can your teen help?

• Your teen may want to take a first-aid class to learn specifics.
• When you’re going on a trip or to an activity that involves some risk, create a first-aid plan ahead of time.
• Interview a first responder or nurse to learn more about the first-aid techniques that work and why.

41. Preparing for a natural disaster

This skill isn’t about prepping months of food but rather that teens should know where to look for weather and disaster news and updates for their area. They need to know how to manage time before a weather event comes through, when to leave or when to stay put, and who to contact for help if they need it. In addition to involving them in your own disaster preparedness, have them download important apps onto their phone and coach them through their first snowstorm or hurricane as an almost-adult.

• Find out which natural disasters are most common in your area, and put your teen in charge of creating a family kit and plan. Check out Ready.gov for more information.

42. Sleeping

Teens have so much going on, it’s not unusual for them to skip sleep. Setting an age-appropriate sleep schedule and sticking to it will help them maintain their health and safety in every sense. Teen sleep is an issue, so help your teen create a schedule that lets them get enough sleep and complete all the things they need to do each day.

• Have your child track their schedule, including sleep each day. How many hours are they sleeping? What are their sleeping patterns? Do they notice any changes when they sleep more or less? Seeing the benefits of having a consistent sleep schedule can help them focus on this important activity.

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What would you add to our list of life skills for teens? Come share in the We Are Teachers HELPLINE group on Facebook.

Plus, Meet 16 Teens Who Are Changing the World.