TOPIC 3. PROMOTION OF LIFE SKILLS
The concept of Life skills
A skill is the ability of an individual to apply mental and physical abilities in society to control one’s environment.
Life skills are the abilities to think and use knowledge to solve personal and social problems or challenges. Life
skills also enable a person to know what to do at a certain time and what not to do.
Life skills enable a person to live well in the society which enables a person to manage his or her life properly.
TYPES OF LIFE SKILLS
There are three major types of life skills which are;
Individual life skills (Intra - personal skills)
Social skills (Inter - personal skills)
Effective decision- making skills.
1.INDIVIDUAL LIFE SKILLS
This is the type of life skills which enable an individual to understand him or herself in various ways.
The People are able to understand their strengths and weaknesses, how they think and feel, and how they express their thoughts and feelings. Individual life skills include the following
Self awareness
Assertiveness
Self esteem
Self-dependence
Copying with stress
Copying with emotion
A. Self awareness
Awareness is the ability to know something.
Self-awareness is the ability of an individual to know himself or herself, his or her feelings, emotions,strengths and weaknesses as well as one’s position in life and society.
Self-awareness enables a person to understand his or her roles in the society, to understand what he or she likes and dislikes and to understand what makes him or her happy and unhappy.
B. Assertiveness
Assertiveness is the ability of a person to know what he or she wants and why and be able to take necessary steps to achieve it.
Being assertive means being able to stand up for your own and others rights. An assertive person is able to express his or her opinions or decisions strongly and with confidence with consideration for the rights of others.
The following techniques could be used to develop and enhance your assertiveness:
Making positive decisions
Being open by sharing your opinions, feelings and needs with others
Being a good listener by giving people freedom to express their feelings and concerns
Being honest by telling others the truth by sharing with them
Respecting others by treating people with decency and politeness.
C. Self-esteem
This is the ability of a person to appreciate oneself and being confident about such a person's aspects such as appearance, personal ability, behavior, competence and access in what one attempts.
Self- esteem is an awareness of good oneself.
Self esteem enable an individual to evaluate himself or herself of his or her own worth
D. Self-dependence
Self-dependence is an individual’s ability to make decisions by him or herself.
It enables you to manage yourself and hence develop a sense of independence from other people.
In order for a person to be self dependence, he or she must:
Accept his or her abilities and potential to perform activity
Have self identity. To recognize who one is. A person must understand the strength,weaknesses, goals and resources he or she needs
Develop independent decision making
Clarify his or her value
Practice independent decision making
E. Stress management
Stress is a mental, emotional or physical tension or pressure.
It can be caused by events such as bad examination results, divorce, death of family members or friends, broken relationships and even unwanted and planned pregnancies.
A person needs to develop skills that help him or her to cope with stress like taking breaks from watching, reading or listening to news and stories from social media, taking care of oneself, talking to others, avoiding alcoholism or drug abuse and connecting with one’s community or faith based organization. The following are strategies that can help one to reduce or managing stress
Managing time. This is achieved by preparing a timetable or schedule helpful for arranging activities in an organized manner. Having a timetable will help you to get rid of unnecessary stress.
Living an organized life. In order to manage stress, a person is required to live an organized life, especially religious organized faith. Living in that way will help a person to manage stress.
Having a positive attitude. Being positive and avoiding focusing on negative aspects of life protects one’s mental health. For example, instead of being upset about family problems like marital conflicts, be positive and seek ways to solve the problem.
Finding a social support system. Spend time with friends, other family members and people who love, care about and support you. a strong support system will enable a person to share with them negative feelings and pain.
Exercising and leisure. Physical exercise gives a person an opportunity to get rid of his or her negative feelings. Take time to do leisure things like watching movies, reading beautiful story books etc.
Copying with emotion, Emotions are strong feelings such as fear, love, anger, shyness, disgust and desire to be accepted. Coping with emotion is the ability of a person to recognize one’s emotions and reasons for them and take the decisions which take consideration of them.
The ability to cope with different emotions enables a person to control his or her strong feelings and actions.
A person should accept reality, create various alternatives in solving problems, think positively over situations and seek advice when necessary.
Ways of Coping with emotions
Identifying emotions in the situation you have by asking questions yourself, are you happy,sad,angry or fearful?
Identifying and knowing the sources of your emotion situation
Analyzing the effects of the emotions on yourself and others
Assessing your ability to handle emotions
Refraining from impulse actions
Seeking guidance or counseling.
2.SOCIAL SKILLS
Social skill is the ability to understand and live in peace and harmony with others.
Social skills give an individual the knowledge and ability to live according to the standard of a society.
The social skills include the following aspects;
Forming good relationship
Forming friendship
Managing peer resistance
Being empathetic
Negotiation
Effective communication
Entrepreneurship skills
Team-work
A. Forming a good relationship.
Relationship refers to the way in which people interact and behave towards others.
Relationships can be children and parents or students and teachers as well as peer neighbors or relatives.
Forming relationships is the ability for people to meet and relate with others in various places such as schools, playing ground and social gathering. Good relationships have a good effect on people's lives.
Being able to form good relationships enables one to know how to behave properly in each relationship.
B. Forming friendship.
This is the ability of an individual to make friends with people whom he or she can share activities, ideas, joy and sadness.
This life skill enables an individual to form bonds with people and thus prevent loneliness. Interpersonal relationships are done through friendship formation. Children should be able to recognize bad friends which can lead them into dangerous or unnecessary risk and behavior such as alcoholism, drug abuse and dangerous sexual behavior.
Forming friendship starts at an early stage of life or at work. The qualities of good friend are;
Trustiness
Empathy
Honest and openness
Unconditional acceptance
Loyalty
C. Managing peer pressure.
Peer pressure is the situation whereby one’s friends influence him or her to do something.
Our friends can influence us to do good or bad things. Peer resistance helps an individual take control of his or her life by resisting negative influence from others.
Managing peer pressure means making an effort to manage or sustain other’s influence that can change your attitude and perspectives on something.
Strategies for managing peer pressure.
Paying attention of what your friends are pressuring you to do something against your values
Being thoughtful by thinking about how you would react in different situations and what you would say or do
Having a conversation with the person by being open to someone who is trying to influence you to do something
Communicate with parents on what your friends ask you to do
Getting support from others such as trusted adults.
D. Being empathetic.
Empathy is the ability to understand other people’s feelings and feel concerned about their problems.
Many people are faced with different problems such as the death of one’s parents, husband or other relatives, so it is better to empathize with other people’s feelings about their problems. This skill enables people to share their friends’ problems in the society wisely and sensibly
E. 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 help to avoid misunderstanding on issues and help to build good understanding between people in the community.
F. Effective communication.
Communication is the process of exchanging and sharing information between two or more people.
The shared information usually comprises facts, knowledge, jokes and emotions.
Communication can be verbal or non-verbal. Verbal communication involves use of spoken or written words to send information.
Non-verbal involves non-spoken or written words to send information.
Effective communication is the ability of a person to communicate with people according to their mood, age and background without undermining each other.
G. Entrepreneurship skills.
Entrepreneurship skills mean the ability to transform ideas into action by solving problems, being creative, innovative and taking risks.
Entrepreneurship gives a student an opportunity to think outside the box, nurtures unconventional talent and instills confidence and spirit of engaging in entrepreneurship activities.
In order to be an entrepreneur, one should have skills such as; Problem Solving skills, interpersonal skills by relating with people, creative and critical thinking skills and practical skills.
H. Team-working.
Teamwork is a process through which a number of individuals with common goals or desires collaborate to do something.
During the collaboration, group members can share their knowledge,skills and resources.
People work together to address various socio-economic and political problems.
Team working always develops social skills among the people.
3.EFFECTIVE DECISION- MAKING SKILLS
Effective decision- making skills refer to a person’s ability to use information to develop appropriate alternatives and predict the consequences of the choices he or she makes.
Effective decision making skills make use of the following aspects;
Critical thinking
Creative thinking
Decision making
Problem,,solving
A. Critical thinking.
This is the ability of a person to develop a deep understanding of something.
It enables a person to analyze, evaluate and describe the quality of something.
It helps a person to understand the environment in which he or she lives and problems which might prevent him or her from making proper decisions.
Before making any decisions, a person considers the advantages and disadvantages of various ways of doing something.
Critical thinking helps a person to come up with good ideas to solve the problem
B. Creative thinking.
This is the ability to think and come up with new ideas and new ways of doing things.
In life, creative thinking helps an individual to come up with solutions that other people have 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 impact before making a decision.
Proper decision making in anything can bring comfort and happiness to an individual.
D. Problem solving.
Problem solving involves making a choice and acting on it with maximum advantage.
Problem solving skills are necessary in life because they help individuals to make decisions and implement them in whatever situation they find themselves in.
Agents (sources) of life skills
i.Family.
This is the primary and first source through which a person (child)can have life skills. Parents,guardians and other relatives are the primary source from whom we learn different life skills.
ii.Neighbors.
These are people living close to our homes. Sometimes neighbors may play a role in molding our moral values and life skills
iii.School.
Also the children can learn life skills through education acquired from school. It is expected that,the knowledge and skills acquired will be useful in their daily lives
iv.Religion.
Good religious teachings help us to get skills which enable the people to get skills which enable us to live harmoniously in the society.
Religious teachings sharpen children’s behavior and conduct to become acceptable members.
v.Friends.
Our friends help us to acquire various life skills due to the exchanging of our ideas. Children acquire some life skills either by observing or working with them
vi.Society.
The way people live allows an individual to learn what is expected of him or her.
Since children live with others, they learn good manners, good behavior and skills through interacting with others
vii.Government.
The government imparts life skills to its people through educational programs.
The government has institutions such as school, colleges and others which organize professional development programs to educate people about civic responsibilities
viii.Non-governmental organizations.
These are organizations which provide social services to people.
They initiate different programs aimed at promoting life skills among the youths.
Importance of life skills
Encourage people to make good decisions. Life skills enable us to make the proper decision in life on different matters.
Source of good morals.Also life skills enable an individual to develop good behavior which will enable him/her to live well in the community and avoid bad friendships.
It brings love in the community. Due to life skills, people may increase love and understanding among themselves.
It makes an individual tolerate various unfortunate issues. Life skills enable an individual to handle and respond to various unfortunate occurrences in the community like divorce, death of friend and relative or any form of harassment.
It maintains peace and orders. Life skills maintain peace and order by solving various problems in the society.
Impacts of not applying life skills
Improper choices. Failure to apply life skills may make people to make wrong choices in the communities
Rise of conflicts. Conflicts may occur among the people in the community if a person does not apply life skills. In addition, failure to build and maintain positive relationships leads to conflicts with others
May lead to immoral behavior. Youth may get into bad behavior and result in things like drug abuse,alcoholism, prostitution, etc
Lack of empathy. This may lead to the increase of suffering for those who have problems. Those who have no such problem may not understand their circumstances
May result in poor leadership. Poor leadership in the societies due to the lack of using life skills.
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