‘Life Skills lies at the core of a healthy and productive life’

Q: Are literacy and numeracy skills enough to prepare the next generation of parents, workers, citizens, and leaders 

Growing interest for education that helps children and young people develop psycho social competencies in addition to literacy and numeracy skills, is well documented. Education that helps young people develop critical thinking and problem solving skills,builds their sense of personal worth, and teaches them to interact with others gainfully and efficiently, has transformative potential.

Life skills are a large group of psycho-social and inter personal skills, which can help people, to make informed decisions, communicate effectively and develop coping and self-management skills that may help an individual to lead a healthy and productive life.

Q: An increasing number of school going children are suffering from depression,stress and anxiety..

Depression is one of the most common yet under-identified mental health glitches at childhood and adolescence. Left unidentified and untreated, depression can have pervasive and long-term impact on social, personal, and academic performance. When school personnel know how to identify and intervene with depressed children,they can provide them with opportunities for effective support.

Q: How can one identify depression?

Depression is not easily recognized. Usually it is mistaken with other issues,such as lack of motivation.Although severe depression might be displayed in symptoms such as suicide at-tempts, severe withdrawal,or emotional swings, majority of cases are much milder and do not attract attention from adults.

Having strategies to cope with difficult situations and negative feelings are important life skill for everyone.

Q: Can coping methods and resiliency be taught and learned?

Resilience is referred to as the capacity to bounce back from disruptive life events.WHO defines life skills as-“abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable humans to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life.”Building resilience really comes through the development of social and emotional skills, which include coping skills. These are the same skills that will help children deal with stress,so it follows that building resilience will really help kids deal with stress.

Francis Joseph

Guest Author Cofounder of School Leaders Network