PROMOTION OF LIFE SKILLS | Form One Civics Notes.
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;
I. Individual life skills (Intra-personal skills)
II. Social skills (Inter-personal skills)
III. Effective decision- making skills.
I. INDIVIDUAL LIFE SKILLS
This is the type of life skills which enable an individual to understand him or herself in various ways. 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
a. Self-awareness
b. Assertiveness
c. Self esteem
d. Self-dependence
e. Copying with stress
f. 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 enable a person to Understand his or her roles in the society, to understand what he or she likes and dislike and to understand what make 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 the rights of others. The following techniques could be used to develop and enhance your assertiveness:
a) Making positive decisions
b) Being open by sharing your opinions, feelings and needs with others
c) Being a good listener by giving people freedom to express their feelings and concerns
d) Being honest by telling others the truth by sharing with them
e) 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 person's aspects such as appearance, personal ability, behavior, competence and access in what one attempt. Self- esteem is an awareness of the 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:
a) Accept his or her abilities and potential to perform activity
b) Have self identity. To recognizing who one is. A person must understand the strength, weaknesses, goals and resources he or she needs
c) Develop independent decision making
d) Clarify his or her value
e) Practice independent decision making
E. Stress management
Stress is a mental, emotional or physical tension or pressure. It can be caused by the events such as bad examination results, divorce, death of family member or friend, broken of the relationship and even unwanted and planned pregnancies. A person needs to develop skills that help him or her to cope with stress like take breaks from watching, reading or listening to news and stories from social media, take care to oneself, talk to others, avoid alcoholism or drug abuse and connect with one's community or faith based organization. The following are strategies that can help one to reduce or managing stress
a) 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.
b) Living an organized life. In order to manage stress, a person is required to live in an organized life, especially religious organized faith. Living in that way will help a person to manage stress.
c) 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 the family problems like marital conflicts, be positive and seek ways to solve the problem.
d) 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 feeling and pain.
e) 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.
F. Copying with emotion
Emotions are strong feelings such as fear, love, anger, shyness, disgust and desire to be accepted Copying 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 the reality, create various alternatives in solving problems, think positively over situation and seek advice when necessary.
Ways of Coping with emotions
a) Identifying emotions in the situation you have by asking questions yourself, are you happy, sad, angry or fearful?
b) Identifying and knowing the sources of your emotion situation
c) Analyzing the effects of the emotions on yourself and others
d) Assessing your ability to handle emotions
e) Refraining from impulse actions
f) Seeking guidance or counseling.
II. 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. Social skills include the following aspects;
i. Forming good relationship
ii. Forming friendship
iii. Managing peer resistance
iv. Being empathetic
v. Negotiation
vi. Effective communication
vii. Entrepreneurship skills
viii. Team-work
A. Forming good relationship. Relationship refers to the way in which people interact and behave towards others. Relationship can be children and parents or students and teachers as well as peer neighbors or relatives. Forming relationship 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 good effect on a people's life. Being able to form good relationship 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 relationship is done through friendship formation. Children should able to recognize bad friend which can lead them into dangerous or unnecessary risk and behavior such as alcoholism, drug abuse and dangerous sexual behavior. Forming friendship starts at early stage of life or at the work. The qualities of good friend are;
i . Trustiness
ii. Empathy
iii. Honest and openness
iv. Unconditional acceptance
v. 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.
a) Paying attention of what your friends are pressurizing you to do something against your values
b) Being thoughtful by thinking about how you would react in different situations and what you would say or do
c) Having a conversation with the person by being open to someone who is trying to influence you to do something
d) Communicate with parents on what your friends ask you to do
e) Getting support from others such as trusted adults.
D. Being empathetic. Empathy is the ability to understand other people's feeling and feel concerned about their problem. Many people are faced with different problems such as death of one's parent, husband or other relatives, so it is better to empathize other people's feeling in 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 occurred. 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 of 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 the 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.
III. 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;
a. Critical thinking
b. Creative thinking
c. Decision making
d. Problem, solving
A. Critical thinking. This is the ability of a person to develop 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 decision. 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 solution 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 impact before making a decision. Proper decision making in anything can bring the comfortability to and happiness to an individual.
D. Problem solving. Problem solving involves the making a choice and acting on it with maximum advantage. Problem solving skills are necessary in life because they help individuals to make decision and implement them in whatever situation they find themselves.
Agents (sources) of life skills
i. Family. This is the primary and first source through which a person (child), can life skills. Parents, guardians and other relative 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 the 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 allow 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
i. Encourage people to make good decisions. Life skills enable us to make the proper decision in life on different matters.
ii. 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 friendship
iii. It brings love in the community. Due to life skills, people may increase love and understanding among themselves.
iv. It makes an individual to tolerate on various unfortunate issues. Life skills enable an individual to handle and respond various unfortunate occurred in the community like divorce, death of friend and relative or any form of harassment.
v. It maintains peace and orders. Life skills maintain peace and order by solving various problems in the society.
Impacts of not applying life skills
i. Improper choices. Failure to apply life skills may make people to make wrong choices in the communities
ii. 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
iii. May lead to immoral behavior. Youth may get into bad behavior and result in things like drug abuse, alcoholism, prostitution, etc
iv. 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
v. May results to poor leadership. Poor leadership in the societies due to the lack of using life skills.
QUESTIONS
1. Briefly give the short notes of the following terms
a. Life skills b. intra-personal skills. c. Inter-personal skills
2. Identify and explain various kinds of intra-personal life skills
3. In five points, explain the interpersonal skills that bring good social relationship among the people in a society
4. Explain by using five points, which types of life skills will you recommend to your friend who is not getting along well with his friends?
5. Tanzania is the one among of the peaceful country in the world, but most of its citizens are affected with the problem of managing their stress. If you have given the chance to deliver talk on the mechanisms of managing stress, which five points will you consider?
6. In five points, assess the institutional agents through which children can learn different life skills in their daily life
7. It is true that, failure to apply life skills may lead to the social problem in a society. As the member of the society, explain five advantages of applying life skills in our daily life
8. "Failure to obtain and use life skills cause many problems." This statement was said by the psychologist who addressed the group of youth and parents. Being among the youth who attended there, propose five problems that are associated with his statement