10 skills children learn outside the classroom

6. Creativity

Creativity is not limited to drawing, painting or making music. Children are being creative whenever they imagine possibilities, invent games, tell stories, build things or find unusual ways to use ordinary objects.

A cardboard box can become a car. A group of chairs can become a house. A simple stick can become part of an imaginary adventure. These activities allow children to create rather than simply consume what someone else has produced.

This is particularly important in a world where children have increasing access to ready-made entertainment. When every activity is already designed for them, they have fewer opportunities to decide what something could become.

UNICEF’s work on play connects imaginative activity with creativity, curiosity, problem-solving and innovation. Its research emphasises that children benefit when play allows them to explore possibilities, make choices and experiment. Creativity therefore develops not only when children are given art materials but when they are given room to imagine.

7. Decision-Making

Children make decisions every day, although adults may not always recognise these moments as learning opportunities. They decide which game to play, how to spend their free time, which activity to attempt first and how to respond when two options are available.

Age-appropriate choices can gradually teach children how to consider consequences. For instance, a child who spends all their available time playing may later realise that there is no time left for another responsibility. With appropriate guidance, that experience can become a lesson in planning and prioritisation.

Parents should not make every decision for their children simply because it is faster or easier. Children need opportunities to practise making choices within safe boundaries. UNICEF’s transferable-skills framework identifies decision-making as an important skill for children and young people, alongside cooperation, communication, self-management and problem-solving.

The aim is not to expect young children to make adult decisions. It is to gradually help them become comfortable with thinking before choosing.

8. Empathy and Respect

Children learn about other people’s feelings through relationships and everyday experiences. Playing with others can teach them what it feels like to take turns, be excluded, apologise, include someone or have their own feelings ignored.

These experiences can help children understand that other people have perspectives and emotions that may differ from theirs.

For example, a child may initially become upset because a friend does not want to play the same game. With guidance, the child can begin to understand that the friend is allowed to have a different preference. Similarly, children can learn that an apology matters when their actions have hurt someone else.

UNICEF places empathy and respect for diversity among important transferable skills for children and young people. These lessons are especially valuable because respect is not learned simply by being told to “respect people”. Children also need repeated opportunities to practise listening, sharing, disagreeing appropriately and recognising other people’s feelings.

9. Resilience

Children will experience failure outside the classroom just as they do inside it. They may lose games, fall while learning to ride a bicycle, struggle to learn a new skill, fail to build something properly or experience disappointment when something they wanted does not happen.

These experiences can teach resilience when children are supported rather than immediately rescued from every difficulty.

Resilience does not mean that children should be expected to handle serious hardship alone. It means developing the ability to recover from ordinary setbacks, learn from mistakes and try again.

Play can provide a safe environment for practising this. A child may lose a game today and return tomorrow wanting another chance. They may build a tower that collapses and then try to construct it differently. They may struggle with a puzzle before eventually finding the solution.

UNICEF describes play as an opportunity for children to develop resilience, confidence and coping mechanisms while navigating challenges and relationships.

These experiences can influence how children approach difficult schoolwork because they begin to understand that struggling with something does not necessarily mean they cannot eventually learn it.

10. Responsibility

Responsibility grows when children understand that their actions affect other people and that they have a role to play in their homes and communities.

Simple responsibilities can include putting away belongings, helping with household tasks, caring for a pet, looking after personal items or completing an agreed task. The objective is not to overload children with adult responsibilities but to give them opportunities to contribute in ways appropriate to their age.

Responsibility also develops through social situations. If a child agrees to bring something for a group activity and forgets, they can begin to understand how their actions affect others. If they damage something and help repair or replace it, they can learn about accountability.

These lessons are difficult to teach effectively through lectures alone because responsibility becomes meaningful when children experience it.

UNICEF’s framework places self-management among important individual skills and cooperation among skills needed to work with others. Together, these abilities help children understand that growing up involves not only having rights and receiving support but also gradually learning how to contribute.

Learning Happens Beyond School

The idea that children learn only when they are sitting at a desk can make adults overlook some of the most valuable experiences in childhood. A classroom provides structured instruction, assessment and academic knowledge, but childhood itself provides countless opportunities for children to practise skills that formal lessons cannot fully replicate.

Playing with friends can teach negotiation. Helping at home can teach responsibility. Getting something wrong can teach resilience. Making choices can develop independence. Conversations can strengthen communication, while imaginative play can nurture creativity.

This is why play and everyday experiences should not automatically be treated as distractions from education. UNICEF’s global early childhood education report notes that social and emotional skills are foundational to learning alongside cognitive skills, while its review of evidence links learning through play with cognitive, social, emotional, physical and creative development.

For parents, this means there is value in giving children opportunities to explore, make age-appropriate decisions, interact with others and take on reasonable responsibilities. For schools, it means recognising that the abilities children develop outside the classroom can also strengthen what happens inside it.

Children do not need every moment of their day to become a formal lesson. They need safe opportunities to experience the world, ask questions, make mistakes, solve problems, interact with people and try again.

The most important skills of childhood are often developed quietly. There may be no certificate for learning how to share, no examination for managing disappointment and no grade for helping a younger sibling. Yet these abilities can influence how children learn, build relationships, handle challenges and eventually participate in society.

Education, therefore, is bigger than what happens on a timetable. The classroom gives children knowledge, but life gives them opportunities to practise what that knowledge means.

When adults recognise the educational value of everyday childhood experiences, they begin to see that play, conversation, responsibility and exploration are not interruptions to learning. They are part of learning itself.