Our kids grow up so fast, and we want them to be prepared when they become adults. As adults, we have so many responsibilities, and it takes years to master many of them. Teaching our children life skills is essential to their future success. So what life skills are most important for your autistic and ADHD teenager to learn?
Why learning life skills is so important
Life skills are key to being independent. Someone cannot be independent if they are not proficient in a variety of life skills. These include things like advocating for themselves, having the skill set to hold a job, being able to drive or take public transportation, planning, and managing a household, including finances.
Most life skills are not taught in school. Instead, we as parents need to step up and teach our children and teens these important skills.
Why learning life skills can be challenging for an autistic teenager
Sometimes, learning certain life skills can be challenging for autistic teenagers. People with autism tend to struggle with communication and social situations. They often lack executive function skills, which are needed for planning and organizing. For some tasks that are more physical in nature like personal hygiene and cooking, teens with autism may have difficulty due to challenges with gross and fine motor skills. For others, sensory issues may get in the way of learning some things.
Our son J probably struggles most with executive function skills. Planning, organizing, using his working memory and avoiding distractions are difficult for him. We have made it a priority to help him overcome these, and with the help of teachers at school, he is slowly getting better.
Life skills to master
For “adulting,” there are so many skills to learn. Which life skills are the most important ones for your autistic teenager to learn? Here are some recommendations.
1. Communication, social and advocacy skills
So much of what we do as adults involves communication, social and advocacy skills. These tend to be skills that we focus on for our autistic and ADHD children when they are young. Therefore, these skills usually are the ones that are worked on the most and for the longest. Yet, they can be the hardest to learn. That is especially true for social skills as the social rules change for various situations and even different times of our lives. The social rules for high school are different than what they were in elementary school. There are social rules at a job, which are unique from the social rules in many other situations.
Self-advocacy skills also are essential. These enable a person to speak for themselves and handle their affairs instead of having someone else do it for them. Those skills include speaking up, knowing their rights, negotiating and problem solving.
2. Executive function skills
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines executive function as “the group of complex mental processes and cognitive abilities (such as working memory, impulse inhibition, and reasoning) that control the skills (such as organizing tasks, remembering details, managing time, and solving problems) required for goal-directed behavior.”
Executive function has several primary aspects. Those include:
- Planning – Skill needed to think of a project or task that needs to be done and then break it into smaller steps to complete the project/task by a deadline.
- Working Memory – Ability to remember short-term thoughts and information needed to complete a task or function.
- Problem Solving – A key capability needed to identify a problem and solutions to solve it.
- Reasoning – Ability to comprehend, analyze and think critically about problems or concepts and be able to relay them verbally to others.
- Attention – Skill that allows a person to focus on the task at hand and recall information from working memory to be able to complete it.
- Initiation – Ability to self-start an activity, task or project.
- Inhibition – The ability to tune out distractions or thoughts that get in the way of completing a task. This is basically impulse control.
- Cognitive flexibility – Skill that allows someone to “go with flow” or adjust their plans or thinking when needed.
These skills are critical to help us function normally in life from everything from paying bills, staying organized on our jobs, complete school and work projects, plan a vacation, determine driving directions, solve problems and so much more. See this blog post for more information about how to develop and improve these skills.
3. Personal care
You can think of personal care as taking care of one’s own body. This includes personal hygiene (e.g., showering, teeth brushing, shaving, etc.) and dressing. It’s also important your autistic teenager knows life skills related to nutrition to understand what foods they should eat to stay healthy. They also should know about the importance of exercise and how to access and use exercise equipment.
Their health care is important too. Does your teenager know how to treat a cold or the flu if they get sick? Can they clean and bandage a cut? Do they know which medicines they take and what they are for? Now is the time to also start teaching them how to make doctor appointments and manage their medication.
4. Everyday life skills
Everyday, or practical, life skills are also important to being independent. This includes knowing how to clean, including vacuuming, dusting, doing dishes, laundering, cleaning bathrooms and more. Learning to cook is an essential skill because they will be able to make their own nutritious meals for themselves.
Other everyday life skills include shopping, finding information (e.g., via the internet, library or other means), driving or using public transportation, sewing, taking care of a yard and so many more tasks we need in our everyday lives.
5. Financial skills
As a certified financial educator, I believe it’s incredibly important that every teenager – including those with special needs – learn as much as they can about money and personal finance. It is key to their independence and managing their lives as adults.
What are some key money management skills they should learn? Those include:
- Budgeting
- Saving
- Investing
- Setting financial goals
- Managing a checking account
- Understanding how credit works and how to build it wisely
- Knowing when to use debt and when to avoid it
(If you want some easy-to-replicate lessons, follow along with my More Pizza money lessons for teens on the Autism Finance Mom blog.)
6. Job skills
Developing job skills is a big step toward independence. That includes how to find a job by creating a resume, finding job openings, applying for a job and then interviewing. Once they have a job, it includes skills for how to be a good employee.
Did you know volunteering is a great way for autistic children and teenagers to prepare for their first part-time job? They learn important lessons for a job, including how to be punctual, wear appropriate attire, follow instructions, understand what’s expected in a workplace and learn how to work under a manager.
Did you know your autistic teenager may be eligible for job coaching through Vocational Rehabilitation? We applied for our son J, and he was accepted into their program. He has been assigned a job coach, who is going to work with him on developing his job skills, finding a job and being on the job with him for a certain amount of time.
7. Personal health and safety skills
Sometimes, personal health and safety skills can be tough to teach. To start, ensure your autistic teenager knows how to call 911 for an emergency situation. They also should be aware of situations that put themselves in danger. Being able to say no and yell for help is crucial. When our son J was taking martial arts lessons when he was younger, the instructor taught the kids that yelling for help was their number one defense move. (He told them not to scream, but instead to yell things like “fire,” “help,” “you are not my mom/dad,” and other things that would catch the attention of other people around them.)
Staying safe online is also very important. While the Internet has many positive aspects, it also has a dark side. Predators, hackers and con artists are skulking to find vulnerable people who will give out personal information that could lead to identity theft and even personal harm. It’s important they know:
- Not to share any confidential information online.
- Not to send photos of themselves to people they don’t know in real life.
- To respond only to appropriate social media posts and comments.
- Never to give out banking/credit card info to anyone online and don’t be duped into sending someone money through the mail.
8. Leisure and recreation skills
Leisure and recreational activities bring joy to our lives. Many of our autistic teenagers already independently focus on their special interests as their recreation, but it is good they know how to get involved with other activities too. This could be a variety of activities like knowing how to find and check books out of the library, how to join a local group or how to plan an outing for themselves or with a friend or too.
How to teach life skills to your autistic teenager
So now that you know what life skills are important to teach to your autistic teenager, how do you do that? Here are some suggestions.
- First, assess what level your teen is at for these skills. What do they already know and what do they still need to learn? Then, determine how you can best teach them. Do you need to update their weekly chore chart? Is there a local library, YMCA or other local organization teaching a safe sitter class that can help with some of these skills? Can your teen assist with making one or two dinners per week to learn cooking skills?
- Use visual teaching tools and supports. People with autism tend to learn better visually. Would a visual schedule or picture book that shows the steps for a task help them learn better?
- Practice skills. In most cases, the best way to teach your autistic teen is with hands-on learning and experience. There is a reason why they say, “practice makes perfect.” When my teens have a hard time folding clean clothes, I remind them that the only way they are going to learn is by doing it, failing and then having to re-fold them. They are improving!
- Use prompting. Sometimes, our teens know what to do, but they may need prompting or reminding to get them to work on a skill or do a task. You could use visual or verbal reminders. Keychain rules can be a great way to do this as well – you can even use these non-verbally by simply using your fingers to show which keychain rule number they should follow. You can download instructions and a free template to use.
Have you had success teaching your autistic teenager important life skills? Leave your tips and suggestions in the comments below so that we can share and encourage each other on this journey.
