«I don't have time to supervise my son. And without supervision, he makes no progress.» That's what a mom from Chicago wrote to me. Her son is nine. He gets A's and B's across the board in school. He's diligent, quiet, and capable. Without his mom nearby, he doesn't finish anything.
Familiar story. Our school gets letters like this every week, from parents in California, New York, Toronto. The child is doing well. And yet, there are tears at home over every test. Notebooks are forgotten. Homework, which is ready and in the backpack, hasn't been handed in for the third time this month. «He's lazy» doesn't explain it: the child is trying. «It's just his personality» doesn't help: this is clearly something that can be worked on, but it's unclear how.
If we're talking without scientific jargon, it's a story about the gap between hard skills and soft skills. What constitutes hard skills is more or less clear: knowledge. Spelling, the multiplication table, noun case endings. Soft skills, on the other hand, are about what a child can *do* with their knowledge. Sit down for a test and not get distracted by a pigeon. Apply knowledge in project work. Not give up after the first C grade. In Russian-speaking families in emigration, for obvious reasons, we gravitate towards the former. US schools and colleges are leaning towards the latter, and increasingly so.
We are starting a series on soft skills for parents. I'll try to do it without jargon and without being boring.
| Hard skills (what the child knows) | Soft skills (what the child can do with them) |
|---|---|
| Spelling, grammar | Sit down for the test and not get distracted by the pigeon |
| Multiplication table, formulas | Not to burn out after the first three and try again |
| Instrumental case endings | Manage knowledge in a group project |
| Dates, facts, terms | To make up with a classmate when you're upset |
| Easy to verify with a test | It's hard to measure, but you can see it in life |
Soft skills are personal qualities that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people.
There are two different things within the concept that are often confused.
The first is called executive functions, or simply EF. This is precisely what the boy from Chicago was lacking. Maintaining attention. Remembering what I'm doing now and why. Not blurting out the first thing that comes to mind. Not postponing starting until «later, in five minutes,» which turn into an hour. Planning. Switching from one task to another and back again.
Without this, knowledge turns into a pile of unthawed ice. A child learned a paragraph but forgot what was assigned by morning. Solved a problem with dad, but couldn't remember the solution on the test.
The second thing is SEL, or social-emotional learning. This is no longer about tasks, but about people. Noticing what's annoying me before I yell. Understanding that a classmate didn't do something «on purpose,» but is just in a bad mood. Explaining to the teacher what happened without crying.
The layers don't work separately. If the first one breaks, the child can't finish the task. If the second one breaks, they can't deliver it to the group. Most problem children have both of them compromised, and they drag each other down.
Why doesn't regular school teach this
It's not that school specifically ignores soft skills. It's just that its structure doesn't allow for them to be taken seriously.
Schools measure what is measurable. Knowledge of spelling is on the report card. The ability to negotiate with a classmate when you're hurt is not on the report card. The tools for measurement exist, but they are individual and cumbersome. A teacher cannot do this in a class of twenty-five children, even if they really want to.
Next is the academic minimum. A child who «knows but doesn't do» fits this minimum. A "B" grade is given. The test was written. By fifth grade, no one notices anything. By eighth grade, it's already apparent, but the school can't handle it on its own.
SEL programs have been implemented in the US since the 2010s. Most often, these are short sessions once a week for the entire class, without diagnostics and without individual work. In most districts, EF is not worked with at all. Read in detail about how American schools are rethinking their approach to education in our article «U.S. schools are preparing children for the jobs of the future.».
Soft skills are developed throughout life.
It's not «at any age» here. There's a window, and it's quite narrow.
The main phase of executive function training occurs between the ages of six and twelve. Before six, the foundation is laid, including inhibitory control, that very «I can resist doing it right away.» After twelve, the fine-tuning for adult tasks begins: long-term planning, metacognition, and abstract self-assessment.
By the age of twenty-five, the brain completes the development of the prefrontal cortex. This is the area that controls everything else. After twenty-five, neuroplasticity doesn't drop to zero, but it noticeably decreases. Adults can learn. It just takes more effort and significantly longer.
| Age | What is being formed | What does this mean for a parent |
|---|---|---|
| 3 to 5 years old | Base, brake control | «Stop Skill»: the ability to wait, not grab immediately |
| Ages 6-12 main window |
Working memory, planning, task initiation | System training window. Will close, will not return. |
| 13–17 years old | Metacognition, long-term planning | The teenager applies the skills himself; the parent won't be able to «cushion» it anymore.» |
| 25+ years | Final formation of the prefrontal cortex | Training is possible, but it will be many times more expensive and involve more resistance. |
Roughly speaking. What isn't trained enough at eight is expensive and painful to train at thirty. That's why elementary school is a window. It will close. It won't come back.
What happens without skill development
At fourteen, a child «suddenly» starts performing worse in school. It's not sudden. In middle school, the demands are greater, and there are more formats: projects due two weeks in advance, group work, presentations in front of the class. What mom helped with in elementary school, the teenager now has to do themselves. And they don't have the coping mechanisms.
At seventeen, the end of high school and college applications arrive. And this is where soft skills become glaringly obvious. Top universities in the US don't just look at SAT and GPA. Personal essay. Recommendation letters from teachers. Interviews. All of this assesses not a child's knowledge base, but their ability to reflect, articulate their position, see things through, and respond appropriately to criticism. With a perfect transcript and a bland essay, Stanford will reject you.
Next comes adult life, which is no longer school-related. Professional life. Smart people with degrees spend years «preparing» to start their own business. They lose their jobs due to conflict with colleagues. They don't finish projects that took a month. With the arrival of AI, the stakes only get higher: what was considered hard skills, machines are doing better and better. What's about people, machines can't handle yet.
In the next article in the series, we'll discuss the first and most recognizable parental pain: why your child knows everything but doesn't do their homework themselves. Palme School is Soft Skills and Executive Functions Program For children aged seven to twelve. Classes are conducted in Russian in small groups, using a methodology specifically designed to train these skills. The first lesson is free. It's a forty-minute diagnostic session covering six areas, after which a specialist will explain to the parent the child's strengths and areas for growth.
