Abstract

Life skills help young people navigate the
challenges of everyday life. They enable them to
develop into healthy, responsible, and productive
adults. Adolescent life skills are central to
psychological theories that aim to understand
how skills and competencies develop. From a
practical standpoint, the promotion of life skills
has been identified as a key resource for enhancing
positive and productive development in
youth. This chapter gives an introduction to the
development of life skills in youth. After providing
a working definition of life skills, four core
dimensions of life skills are identified, and examples
for each dimension are provided. Next,
major life skill frameworks for youth development
are outlined. These frameworks include
the Positive Youth Development framework and
the Developmental Risk and Resiliency framework.
Finally, implications for the monitoring and
evaluation of intervention programs are elaborated.