Skill Facts for Kids

A skill is something you learn to do well, often with practice. It's your ability to get a job done right, usually within a certain amount of time or effort. Skills can be general, meaning they help you in many parts of life, or specific, meaning they are for one particular task.

For example, time management (organizing your time) and teamwork are general skills. Operating a special machine, like a sand blaster, is a specific skill. When you show a skill, it usually needs a certain situation to be seen and used.

Sometimes, a skill is called an art if it's a big area of knowledge or learning. Think of "the art of medicine" or "the art of war." While fine arts like painting are skills, many skills are an "art" without being connected to painting or music.

People need many different skills to do well in today's world. Experts suggest there are three main types of skills: technical, human, and conceptual. Technical skills are often called hard skills, and human skills are often called soft skills.

Hard Skills
Holistic Competencies
Labor Skills
Life Skills
People Skills
Social Skills
Soft Skills
How Skills Develop
See also

Hard Skills

Hard skills are also known as technical skills. These are abilities related to a specific task or job. They involve understanding how to do something and being good at it. This includes using certain methods, processes, or tools.

Hard skills are usually easy to measure. For example, you can take a test to show you know how to code a computer program or fix a car engine. These skills often come from training, school, or professional courses.

Holistic Competencies

Holistic competencies is a big term for different types of general skills. These include important abilities like critical thinking (thinking clearly and solving problems) and problem-solving. They also cover good values and attitudes, such as being resilient (bouncing back from tough times) and appreciating others. These skills are super important for learning throughout your life and for growing as a whole person.

Labor Skills

Skilled workers have always been important throughout history. Think of electricians, masons (who build with stone), carpenters, blacksmiths, bakers, and printers. These jobs are important for the economy. In the past, skilled workers often joined craft guilds, which were like clubs where they could work together and have a say in things.

Life Skills

Life skills help you handle everyday challenges.

Life skills are abilities you gain through practice and effort. They help you do complex activities or job tasks smoothly. These tasks can involve:

Ideas (cognitive skills): Like thinking and planning.
Things (technical skills): Like using tools or machines.
People (interpersonal skills): Like talking and working with others.

People Skills

People skills are all about how well you get along with others. They include:

Understanding yourself and controlling your reactions.
Talking clearly and showing empathy (understanding how others feel).
Building good relationships based on trust, respect, and working well together.

In simple terms, people skills mean you can communicate effectively and friendly with others, especially in business or school. This term is used for both psychological skills (how your mind works) and social skills (how you interact with groups). It's a bit less broad than "life skills."

Social Skills

Social skills are any abilities that help you interact and communicate with other people. We create, share, and change social rules and relationships through talking and body language. The way we learn these skills is called socialization.

Soft Skills

Soft skills are a mix of many different abilities. They include:

Interpersonal people skills (how you interact with others).
Social skills (how you behave in groups).
Communication skills (how well you express yourself).
Character traits (like being honest or hardworking).
Attitudes (your way of thinking).
Career attributes (things that help you in a job).
Emotional intelligence (EQ) (understanding and managing your own and others' emotions).

How Skills Develop

It's often a good idea to develop very high levels of skill. This can help you with your job, your social life, or just for your own personal growth.

In his 2008 book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell suggested the "10,000 hour rule." This idea said that you could become world-class at something by practicing for 10,000 hours. However, other people disagreed. They pointed out that you also need feedback to get better, and just practicing a lot doesn't always guarantee success.

In his 2019 book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, David Epstein suggested that trying out different activities first can be helpful before you pick one thing to specialize in. This could be trying different musical instruments, sports, or even jobs. Epstein believes that many tasks need a variety of skills. People who are well-rounded often have these skills. Finding a task that fits your personality and interests can be more helpful than just starting early and practicing a lot. Someone who is very skilled in many different areas is called a polymath. If they are skilled in many musical instruments, they are a multi-instrumentalist.

A big question is how much skills are learned versus how much they come from natural talent. Epstein found evidence for both sides when looking at high-performance sport in his 2013 book The Sports Gene. For thinking tasks, scientists have studied the heritability of IQ to try and answer this. However, IQ doesn't always directly show how skilled someone will be at a specific thinking task.

Skill facts for kids

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