In honour of Upskill Your Child Day today, we’ve written a special blog on the subject.

We’ve got a little story for you. Many years ago, around the 1980s in fact, there was a little boy. Like many little boys, he was fascinated by dinosaurs. He was his house’s resident amateur palaeontologist: he even excavated in the back garden, “just in case” he made a find. It would have been called Antoniusaurus. Which is not the antonym for ‘thesaurus’ (it can be easy to get confused).

But it wasn’t just about dinosaurs he knew a lot about: his was an endless fascination with the world that saw many remote controllers disassembled even by the time he was three “to see how they worked”. Being able to put them together again was an altogether different skill, and sadly for his parents, one he did not possess.

Perhaps the most exciting thing that happened in his young life was the arrival of an encyclopaedia series of books. Whenever he heard the adults discussing a subject he didn’t understand, he couldn’t wait until he was back home. He would run into the study, select the book with the subject’s corresponding letter, and page through it until he found it. And read. And read. Until he understood it.

Today, he is an accomplished writer, self-taught designer, and secret consultant to NASA on theories pertaining to the existence of domestic cats in the other universes*.

The Number 1 Ingredient to Upskill your Child.

There’s a point to that story. And that is, curiosity is the most important quality when ingraining a culture of upskilling in your child. Upskilling yourself is why people like college drop-outs Steve Jobs achieved what they did. And it’s easier now than ever before.

How do you encourage your child’s curiosity? There needs to be a sense of reward for discovering something new. For instance, if you want your son to be a useful male when he’s older and actually help out in the kitchen when he’s married, then teach him discovery. That will help you upskill your child.

Like, by getting him, at a young age, to put together a few simple recipes of his own, and for him to see (and smell and taste) how these come out when cooked, he’ll experience a sense of wonder. And a curiosity as to what he can create next.

It could be the beginning of a lifelong romance with the kitchen, where he’s the one who wears the “Kiss the Cook” apron.

But whatever the subject is, whether it’s how the lightbulbs turn on or why the smart TV is able to stream any show at any time despite no direct physical connection to the internet, curiosity is the driving force to upskill your child.

Tech lets you upskill your child.

The modern age’s equivalent of the Britannia set of encyclopaedias is Wikipedia – it’s one of those webpages that really encourages surfing from topic to topic about… well, just about anything.

But it’s especially helpful with difficult-to-understand topics, like physics or biology. Also, the arts. Such as the nature of watercolour, acrylic, and oil paintings, and the techniques involved.

TED Talks is an amazing way to learn new, mind-bending concepts to upskill your child. Younger teenagers can already comprehend many of the talks because they’re delivered in simple, bite-sized ways that then all come together in an ‘a-ha!’ moment.

Then there are the online academies offering courses in subjects of all kinds. And they’re really inexpensive. What you get for a small investment in your child’s future is a phenomenal amount of video lectures and notes from university and college professors from around the world.

Courses at all levels. It’s never too early to start, for instance, coding. Coding is definitely a skill that will be needed far into the future. And is a great way to upskill your child But, like anything else, it’s much easier to learn the basics of when you’re young.

And painting, pottery, and pencils.

There’s also an abundance of tutorial videos available online, from anything DIY in the home to painting a pretty picture.

 *The current theory is they have actually travelled to ours from a dimension called Sirius when their catnip ran out. Anyway, Happy Upskill Your Child Day!