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WHAT IS LIFE SKILLS?
A skill is the ability that a person has to do something well.
Life Skills: Is the ability of an individual to apply mental and physical powers to control the environment. It also enables a person to know what to do at certain time and what not to do.
These skills include the ability to:
- Understand one self
- Building sound relationships with others
- Survive under difficult circumstances
- Cut responsibly and safely
- Solve problems
TYPES OF LIFE SKILLS
There are three major types of life skills. These are
- Individual life skills
- Social life skills
- Effective decision making skills.
1: Individual Life skills
Is the ability of an individual to understand themselves in various ways.
In these skills an individual is able to understand his/her feelings and emotion, strengths and weaknesses as well as his/her position in life and society.
Individual life skills includes:-
- Awareness: is the ability to know something.
Self- awareness: is the ability of an individual to know himself/herself, his/her feelings, emotion, strengths and awareness.
- Coping with stress
Stress: is mental, emotional or physical tension or pressure.
There are situations that can cause stress in people’s lives such as family problems, divorce, examination pressure, death of friends, parents, etc. A person needs to develop skills that help him/her to cope with stress.
- Coping with emotions
Emotions: are strong feelings such as fear, love, anger, shyness, disgust and the desire to be accepted.
Coping with emotions is the ability of a person to recognize his/her emotions and make decisions.
- Assertiveness
Is the ability of a person to know what he or she wants 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.
2: Social skills
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.
Aspects of social skills:
Forming healthy relationships
Forming friendships
Peer resistance
Sympathy
Negotiation and effective communication
- Forming healthy relationships
Relationship: refers to the way people interact and behave towards each other.
It can be between:- children and parents or students and teachers etc.
- Forming friendships
Is the ability of an individual to make friends with people whom he/she can share activities, ideas, joy and sadness.
- Peer resistance
Peer pressure comes about when one’s friends influence him/her to do something. Our friends can influence us to do good or bad things. For instance positive peer pressure can lead you to work harder in school, home, etc but negative peer pressure can cause to indulge in wrong activities such as drug taking, theft, etc.
- Empathy
This is the ability to understand other people’s feelings and to feel concerned about their problems. This skill enables us to share our friends’ problems.
- Negotiation
Is the ability to agree on issues without undermining or going against one’s principles. It is an important skill when disagreements occur.
- Effective communication
This is the ability of a person to communicate with people according to their mood, age and background. It includes speaking, listening, reading and writing skills.
Communication: is the exchange of information between or among people. It can be done either orally or in written form.
Elements of communication
For effective communication to take place we consider the following:
Sender: the one who has the message which needs to be sent.
Message: the information to be sent
Medium: the channel through which the message is transferred
Receiver: the one the message is intended to reach
Feedback: the response of the receiver
Topic 2: Promotion Of Life Skills – Civics Notes Form 1
Communication includes four different skills
- Listening skills
This means paying attention to the message being derived. It involves selecting and summarizing what the speaker has said.
This helps someone to understand what has been said by the speaker.
- Speaking skills
Refers to the art of expressing thoughts by talking.
The purpose of speaking are:
To give general idea of something
To analyze the general idea so as to be understood
- Reading skills
Is the process of looking at words to gain an idea or ideas.
There are several ways of reading such as:-
- Scanning (Looking for specific information like names, dates, years etc)
- Skimming (Looking for main ideas)
- Intensive reading (Reading for deep understanding)
3: Effective decision- Making Skills
Is the skill that enables a person to make good decision.
Aspects of effective decision- Making Skills
- Critical thinking
Is the ability of a person to develop a deep understanding of something before making a decision.
Critical thinking helps a person to come up with good ideas to solve problems.
- Creative thinking
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 had not thought of.
- Decision Making
Is the ability to make the best choice out of many available options.
- Problem solving
This involves making a choice and acting on it. It is important because it help individual to make decisions and implement them in whatever situation they find themselves.
SOURCES OF LIFE SKILLS
The following are the major sources
Family: Parents, guardians and other relatives are primary source from whom we learn different life skills.
Religion: good religious teachings help us to get skills which enable us to live harmoniously in society.
Schools: The good educations we get at school enable us to develop skills for life.
Friends: friends enable us to acquire various life skills. Exchanging good ideas with friends helps to mould us into well- behaved individuals.
Society: the way people in the society live allows an individual to learn what is expected of him or her and how he/she should behave in different circumstances.
Government: this plays a key role in imparting life skills through government ministries and institutions like schools, colleges and social welfare offices. It conducts seminars and regular meetings to educate people about their civic responsibilities.
Non Governmental Organizations (NGO’s)
IMPORTANCE OF LIFE SKILLS EDUCATION
1. It helps people to live comfortably and more productively
2. It develop good behavior (classroom behavior)
3. It helps to solve various problems
4. Helps to understand the environment and the way of fitting it
5. It emphasizes working with community cooperatively
6. It helps to develop critical thinking skills
7. It increase the ability to plan ahead and choose effective solutions to problems
8. It empowers the younger generation to deal with challenging situations in their lives.
9. It promotes healthy attitudes such as confidence, self awareness and self esteem.
10. It maintain peace, love and order
11. It assists in resolving conflicts
CONSEQUENCES OF NOT APPLAYING LIFE SKILLS
1. Improper choices- people may make wrong choices in their education and future careers
2. Bad behavior- people may develop bad behavior e.g. not respecting each other.
3. Conflicts- conflicts may occur due to lack of negotiation
4. Poverty- this may occur due to lack of proper decision making in the society.
5. Poor leadership
6. Lack of sympathy
7. The inability to solve problems
8. Lack of seriousness for learners.
