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TOPIC 2: PROMOTION OF LIFE SKILLS
Meaning of Life Skills
A skill is the ability of an individual to apply his/her
mental and physical power to control the environment. It involves things like
thinking, playing and implementation so as to solve social, political, economic
and culture problems. These skills are the ability to understand one self,
build sound relationships with others, survive under difficult circumstances,
act responsibly and safely, and solve problems. It addresses the balance
between knowledge, attitude and skills.
Need
for Life Skills
As children develop, their life begins to change.
Adolescents may develop a variety of life skills to prepare them to face
challenges, take up family responsibility, make decisions and think about what they
want to be in the future. Life skills education addresses these issues for the
benefit of the individual and society at large. Life skills equip adolescents
with knowledge and attitudes that should lead to the requirement behavior.
They reduce health risk and raise awareness on health and
related behavior such as sexual abuse, drug abuse, violence, drunkenness,
unwanted pregnancy, sexual transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV/AIDS. Life
skills play a decisive role in helping to prevent these behaviors and
enlightening teenagers about these challenges so that they can protect themselves.
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| Providing Life Skills |
TYPES
OF LIFE SKILLS
There are three major types of life skills:
a) Individual life skills
b) Social skills
c) Effective decision- making skills
1. INDIVIDUAL LIFE SKILLS
The ability of a person to know and understand personal
feelings, emotions, strengths, weaknesses as well as the position in life and
society. It is also the ability of an individual to have a clear vision of self-identity
of where he/she come from and culture which has shaped him/her.
The Importance of Individual Skill
Individual skill is very important in building self esteem and self confidence as a person becomes aware of his/her own
capabilities and position in the community. The more individual is aware of personal
capabilities, the more capable he/she is of using those skills effectively and
be able to make choices which are consistent with the opportunities available in
the society which one lives. Individual life skills include self-awareness,
ability to cope with stress, with emotions and assertiveness.
a) Self Awareness
Awareness is the ability of knowing things. Thus self-
awareness is the ability of an individual to know himself or herself, his or
her feelings, emotions, strengths and weaknesses. This skill enables a person
to ask important questions about himself or herself. Evaluate yourself
Ask yourself the following questions and try to answer
them.
1. Who am I and what is my role in the society?
2. What do I like, what are my dislikes and why?
3. What makes me happy, what makes me unhappy and why?
b) Copying with Stress
Stress is a mental, emotional or physical tension or
pressure. It can be caused by the events such as examinations, divorce, death
of a family member or a friend or problems in the family. A person needs to
develop skills that help him or her to cope with stress.
Evaluate yourself: Let’s say you have failed in your
annual examinations:
1. Would you be happy with the results? Why?
2. Would your parents be happy with the results? Why?
3. Would you be able to explain the results to other people?
Why?
4. How would you cope with this situation?
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| Copying with Stress |
c) Copying with Emotions
Emotions are strong feelings such as love, the desire to
be accepted, fear, anger shyness and disgust. The ability to handle emotions
enables a person to control his/her strong feelings and actions.
Evaluate yourself. Let’s say you are too shy to ask or
answer questions in class:
1. How would you feel about this situation? Why?
2. How would your fellow students react to this behaviour
during the lesson?
3. How would you overcome your shyness?
d) Assertiveness
Assertiveness is the ability of a person to know what
he/she wants and why, and be able to take necessary steps to achieve it. An
assertive person is able to express his or her opinions or desires strongly and
with confidence. However in achieving what he/she wants the person has to
consider rights of others.
Evaluate yourself; Let’s say you are having a debate
session in school.
The motion is, “Teachers
should build laboratories for practical training in the school” You are
proposing this motion.
How can you convince the other students to support your
side?
2. SOCIAL SKILLS
This is the ability to understand and live in peace and
harmony with others. These are skills for the development of positive
interpersonal relationships with friends, family members, peers, people in authority
and adults. Social life skills can be developed through the following:
a) Building Positive Relationships with Others
This is the ability of a person to meet and relate with
others in various places such as schools, playing field and social gathering.
Relationships can be between children and parents or students and teachers.
They can also be between relatives, neighbours or peers. Being able to form
healthy relationships enables one to know how to behave properly in each
relationship.
b) Peer Resistance
Peer pressure is when one's peers/friends influence
another person to do something. Our friends can influence us to do good or bad
things. For example, positive peer pressure can lead to you to work harder in
school and improve your grades. Negative peer pressure can cause you to engage
in wrong activities, such as drug abusing and escaping from school. Such bad
behavior will get you into trouble with your teachers and parents. No one wants
to have a friend who can lead one into problems. Peer resistance helps an
individual to take control of him/herself by resisting negative influences from others.
Evaluate yourself:
1. Have you ever been influenced by your friends to do
something?Elaborate
2. Was it good or bad?
3. What did you do when you were influenced to do bad
things?
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| Good Relationship with Others |
c) Empathy
This is the ability to understand other people`s feelings
and to feel concerned about their problems. When you empathize, you imagine
yourself in the other people`s situation. This skill enables us to share our
friend’s problems.
Evaluate yourself:
1. How do you feel when your best friend is faced with
problems?
2. Imagine your friend has failed the civic test. Say how you
would feel and what can you do to help him/her?
d) Negotiation
This is the ability to agree on issues without
undermining or going against one’s principles. It is an important skill when
disagreements occur. Negotiation skills build good understanding.
Evaluate yourself.
Imagine your friend wants you to discuss mathematics with
him/her while you wanted to discuss civics.
How would you negotiate with him/her so that both of you
can agree?
e) Effective Communication
This is the ability of a person to communicate with
people according to their mood, age and background. It includes speaking,
reading, listening and writing skills. This skill is very important in maintaining
good relationship with other people. Speaking correctly means saying what you
want in a way that can be easily and clearly understood.
Evaluate yourself;
1. Do you talk to your parents the same way you talk to your
younger brother or sister?
Why?
2. How do you talk to your best friend when he/she is happy?
How do you talk to him/her when he or she is sad?
3. EFFECTIVE DECISION MAKING SKILLS
These skills enable a person to make good decisions. The
following are the aspects of effective decision-making skills: Critical
thinking, creative thinking, problem-solving and decision-making.
a) Critical Thinking
This is the ability of a person to develop a deep
understanding of something. It helps a person to understand the environment in
which he/she lives and problems which might prevent him or her from making
proper decisions. Before making a decision, a critical thinker considers the
advantages and disadvantages of various ways of doing something. Critical thinker
helps a person to come up with ideas to solve problems.
Evaluate yourself
lf What problems does your school face?
Can you find out their cause? Have you ever thought of
how to solve them?
b) Creative Thinking
This is the ability to think and come up with new ideas
and ways of doing things. In life, creative thinking helps an individual to
come up with solutions that other people had not thought of.
Evaluate yourself
1. Have you found problems at your school or home which
other people did not know of?
2. Were you able to suggest solutions that other people had
not thought of?
c) Decision Making
This is the ability to make the best choice out of many
available options. The choice is made after considering its results. In life,
it is important to think about consequences before making a decision.
Evaluate yourself;
Imagine your pen cannot write and you do not have money
to buy a new one.
How do you solve this problem?
SOURCES OF LIFE SKILLS
People learn life skills from different sources. The
following are the major ones.
1. Family: Parents, guardians and other relatives are primary
source from whom we learn different life skills.
2. Neighbors: We learn the different ways that people
live from our neighbors. Good neighbors help us to behave well.
3. Friends: Friends helps us to acquire various life
skills. Exchanging good ideas with friends help to mold us in to well-behaved
individuals.
4. Schools: The good education we get at school enables
us to develop skills for life.
5. Society: the way people live in the society allows an
individual to learn what is expected of him/her and how he/she should behave in
different circumstances.
6. Religion: Good religion teachings help to get skills
which enable us to live harmoniously in society
Note: The above mentioned sources of life skills are
sources of positive and progressive life skills.
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| Learning Life Skills |
THE IMPORTANCE OF LIFE SKILLS
Life skills are very important because they help develop
abilities which are necessary for making life better. Some of the things that
these skills enable us to do include:
1. Make proper decisions in life on different matters, like
friendships, whichsubjects to
studyin school and whatcareer to pursue.
2. Develop good behavior. Through social skills, a person is
able to avoid bad friends and anti-social behavior such as smoking, drug abuse,
abusing alcohol and getting into premature sexual relationships.
3. Increase love and understanding for other people because
of good social skills.
4. Respond effectively to different situations. Through life
skills, a person is able to handle unfortunate occurrences such as divorce,
death of friends or relatives, examination pressure or any form of harassment
or intimidation.
5. Maintain peace and order. Negotiation skills enable
people to solve their problems
peacefully. This helps prevent conflict.
6. Understand the environment and ways to fit in it because
you have skills to solve any problem around you. It also helps to maintain the
culture of your community.
7. Social skills help a person to know and live with
others peacefully.
8. They give a person knowledge and ability to live a
better life with other people in the society.
HOW TO USE SOCIAL SKILLS
Social skills help a person to know and live with others
peacefully. They give a person knowledge and ability to live a better life with
other people in the society. Social skills consist of the ability to form good
relationship with other people, make good friends, show empathy, exhibit peer
resistance, negotiate effectively and have effective communication.
We can use social skills in the following Ways:
1. Forming relationship with other people - This skill
enables one to know how to behave in each relationship. It helps a person to
behave properly according to the prevailing situation.
2. Making good friends – A person can use this skill to
make good friends.
Good friends are those who:
- Respect and assist us, our parents, relatives and elders
- Go to school and school rules.
- Assist each other when in problems
- Correct each other when one misbehave
3. Showing empathy – this is the ability to feel what
others are going through, especially when they are experiencing problems. This
social skill enables one to understand other people’s problems and show
feelings. It enables a person to take part in finding out ways to solve other people’s
problems.
4. Exhibiting peer resistance – A person who have proper
social skills is able to resist bad influences from his/her peers or friends.
Such a person does not do things that are unacceptable to society, for example
fighting, prostitution, theft and truancy.
5. Displaying effective communication – Proper
communication can be used to establish good relationships with others people.
It is through effective speaking, writing and listening that a person can
establish relationships with others.
6. Problem solving – This is the social skill that
enables a person to make a proper decisions in difficult times.
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| Skills in Interview |
Consequences of not Applying Social Skills
Failure to apply life skills can lead to problems. Some
of these problems are:
1. Improper choices: People may make wrong choices in their education and future careers. A person may find him/herself make wrong choices by studying subjects which he/she cannot fit in.
2. Bad behavior: People may develop bad behavior. For
example, the youth may not
respect their parents, teacher and elders, due to negative
peer pressure. They may also get into drug abuse or stealing.
3. Conflicts: Conflicts can occur due to lack of negotiation
skills. Such conflicts could be among students, in families, in communities or
between countries.
4. Poverty: Poverty may occur or increase due to lack of
proper decision-making in the
society or country. Lack of creative skills to bring
about development.
5. Poor leadership: Lack of good communication between
leaders and the citizens can
lead to poor leadership.
6. Lack of empathy: Lack of empathy may lead to increased
suffering for those who have problems as those who do not have problems may not
understand their circumstances.
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