*Classroom Management | Teacher Tips
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8 Essential Life Skills to Teach at Home

A teenager and an adult cooking together in a modern kitchen

Transitioning to adulthood can be exciting but also a bit challenging, especially for young adults with special needs.

As parents, you play a huge role in helping your children learn the skills they need to live independently. These skills aren’t just learned in school—there’s so much you can do right at home to prepare your young adult for the future.

In this post, I’ve listed essential transition life skills you can teach at home. From managing money to cooking meals and practicing good hygiene, these skills will help young adults with special needs do well in taking control of their lives.

Continue reading and exploring these transition skills that your young adults can learn while they aren’t in school!

What Are Transition Skills and Why Are They Important?

A woman and a young girl sit close together on a yellow couch

Transition skills are practical life skills high school students or teenagers need to transition into independent adults. These abilities are needed for them to do well in their college education, jobs, and managing their own lives.

Transition life skills include managing money, maintaining the household, and moving around the community. They also include social skills like communicating effectively and building relationships.

These can be divided into different domains, such as:

  • Self-determination
  • Executive functioning
  • Social-emotional
  • Physical health
  • Financial literacy
  • Community
  • Household
  • Vocational skills

By practicing these skills at home, parents can give their kids a head start in becoming independent and thriving in the adult world. They can help disabled young adults live on their own, make good decisions, and feel confident in their daily lives.

9 Transition Life Skills to Teach at Home

A woman and a young girl sitting cross-legged on a couch, meditating together.

As a parent, you can do a lot to help your teen become more independent, whether they have special needs or not!

Here’s a list of transition skills your teen can practice to boost their independence.

Self-Determination

Self-determination is the ability to make choices and decisions for yourself. It means setting goals, making plans to achieve them, and taking action. Simply put, it’s about being in control of your own life.

Here are simple activities to teach self-determination skills at home.

  • Help your teens set small, achievable goals such as daily goals, and track their progress.
  • You can encourage self-determination by giving your child a choice. Let them decide on daily activities like what to eat for dinner or household chores.
  • When your teenager encounters a problem, work together to find solutions. Talk about what worked and what didn’t.
  • Practice self-advocacy by encouraging your child to speak for themselves. You can try role-playing different scenarios.
  • Help your young adult learn mindfulness by doing deep breathing exercises or simple meditation together with your child.
  • Let them write down their thoughts or feelings. A gratitude journal is also a great idea! They can write down things to be grateful for each day.
  • Do enjoyable activities like drawing or listening to music.

Executive Functioning Skills

Executive functioning skills are mental skills that help us set goals, focus, and get things done. They’re even described as the management system of our brain.

So, what can you do at home to help develop executive function? Here are some examples:

  • Set a routine at home to help your teenagers practice time management.
  • Teach them how to use planners.
  • Let them make their own appointments like a visit to the doctor, scheduling college tours, and even hair salon appointments.
  • Help your child memorize personal information through repetition. You can do this by practicing filling out forms. Try out this Personal Information Typing Activity!

Social Emotional Learning

A woman comforting a sad teenage boy by gently placing her hand on his head.

Social-emotional skills, help young adults manage their feelings, build good relationships, and handle social situations well. These skills are super important for everyone, not just for teenagers with special needs.

One of the social-emotional skills is stress management. It’s one of the most important skills your teenager can learn, especially now that many young people are feeling more stressed, anxious, and depressed.

Another one is building healthy relationships. We know that having good relationships is important for a happy life, but it can be challenging for a person with a disability.

Here’s how you can help them with social-emotional skills:

  • Teach your young adult how to recognize their emotions.
  • Promote mental health awareness by talking about it.
  • Identify relationships—friendship, peer relationships, strangers, etc. This relationship lesson and activity resource material can help!
  • Talk to your teenager about how they feel in relationships and encourage them to be open and honest about their feelings.
  • Help them learn to say when something has hurt their feelings to build trust.
  • Practice listening to each other carefully and respectfully.
  • Teach your teenager to ask for what they need to feel cared for and seen.
  • Teach them to take responsibility and say sorry when they’ve hurt someone.

Physical Health

As your teenager transitions into adulthood, learning about physical health is important. There’s a lot to teach under this category, but the good thing is, you can do many of them at home!

From personal hygiene and staying active to health care and medication management, here are some ways to help your child understand and manage their health.

  • Teach good hygiene habits like regular showers, hair washing, and teeth brushing as early as possible. You can use visual posters about personal hygiene to help them learn better.
  • Take your young adult shopping for personal care items to help them understand costs and how often these items need to be replaced.
  • Create a daily exercise routine such as walking or biking.
  • Teach your special needs teenager how to identify when they’re feeling unwell.
  • Teach basic first aid skills. Start by understanding the first aid vocabulary activity. Here’s a First Aid Kit & Definition Google Slide Activity that you can use for this skill!
  • Let them practice scheduling doctor’s appointments and pharmacy shopping.
  • Discuss how and when to take medication.
  • Talk about the dangers of smoking, alcohol, and substance abuse. Explain why it’s essential to avoid these things.

Financial Literacy

A teenage checking her shopping list while selecting fruits at a grocery store.

Learning about money is also important for teenagers as they get ready to become adults. This category is all about money management skills such as figuring out how to save, spending money wisely, and knowing where their money is going.

How do you teach your teenager to manage their finances?

  • Start by opening a bank account for your teenager.
  • Teach them how to use a debit card and make ATM withdrawals.
  • Practice budgeting by planning family meals for a week on a budget.
  • If possible, get your young adult a part-time job to learn about earning and managing a steady income.
  • Teach your child about the different types of bills they will have, like rent, utilities, and groceries.
  • Explain what taxes are. Get a tax form and have your special needs child practice filling it out.
  • This may sound super simple, but it’s also important to teach a special needs child how to count change.
  • Practice ordering and giving tips in a restaurant or fast food place.
  • Have them use a money management app.

Community

Community life skills help young adults navigate their surroundings, get to places, and understand how to live independently in their community.

These skills include knowing how to use transportation, visiting places, community involvement, and even consumer skills!

Here’s how you can help your teenager with special needs learn these important skills at home.

  • Teach them how to use a GPS device, phone app, or any online mapping service when traveling.
  • Prepare your young adult for driving lessons. You can do this by studying a driver’s manual and quizzing them rules of the road.
  • Practice taking a bus or subway together to help your child how to understand public transportation.
  • Talk about staying safe while traveling. Check out this fun traveling safety game!
  • Bring them with you when you’re grocery shopping and teach them vocabulary and community skills as you travel to the store.
  • Teach your young adult about mail, going to the post office, and other related vocabulary.

Household

A teenage girl ironing a white shirt at home.

Household skills are important for teenagers with special needs to learn to live independently. These skills help them care for themselves, keep their living space clean, and manage daily tasks effectively.

Here are some simple and practical ways to teach these important skills at home.

  • Involve your teenager in meal planning and preparation.
  • Let them create a grocery list and have them stick to a budget. For these first two skills, you can use this Grocery Prep & Cooking template!
  • Teach them about clothing and laundry, and establish a weekly laundry routine.
  • Assign your teenager different household chores like washing dishes, vacuuming, or cleaning the bathroom.
  • Encourage regular cleaning habits such as wiping kitchen counters and dusting furniture.
  • Help your child organize their belongings and return them to their designated places.
  • Teach basic household maintenance like changing light bulbs, replacing batteries, and unclogging drains.

Vocational Skills

Get your special needs teenager ready for employment by teaching them vocational skills! These skills enable them to find and maintain jobs, and even handle workplace challenges.

While most of these important skills are taught in school, it can help your child a lot if you let them practice even at home.

  • Help your teenager create a resume by listing their education, skills, and any volunteer work or previous jobs.
  • Teach them how to use job search websites.
  • Practice filling out job applications together. You can find lots of mock job application templates online.
  • Role-play different workplace scenarios to teach appropriate behavior and communication.
  • Discuss the importance of dressing appropriately.
  • Teach them how to use basic software like word processors, spreadsheets, and email.
An older woman and a young girl baking together, with the girl sneaking a taste of cookie dough.

This list may seem long, but it’s just a start! There are so many more things you can do. Getting your child involved in your daily tasks will help them become more independent as they grow up and become part of our community, no matter what challenges they face. It’s also never too early to begin teaching these important skills!

If you want more ideas on what your teenager should learn at home during school breaks, you can check out this SPED Life Skills Rating Checklist!

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