ENHANCING LIFE SKILLS

ENHANCING LIFE SKILLS

As stated by WHO, life skills are defined as “abilities for adaptive and
a positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the
demands and challenges of everyday life.”

Life skills helps individuals to
make decisions in life. It’s knowledge enhances feel good, efficacy, self
esteem & self confidence. Its development offers a holistic framework for preparing adolescents for livelihood, to face their daily challenges.

These are a group of psycho-social competencies and interpersonal skills
that help people make informed decisions, communicate effectively and
develop coping and self management skills to lead a healthy and productive
life. They enable us to translate knowledge, attitude and values into actual abilities by helping us decide what to do, when to do and how to do it.

Core Life Skills

1) Self-awareness: recognition of 'self, our character, our strengths and
weaknesses, desires, likes and dislikes, and skills. Being aware of the good
points about oneself helps young people build a sense of self-esteem and
self-confidence. Being aware of their weaknesses will make young people be
willing to learn more. This also helps them utilise the opportunities available
to them in relation to their abilities. Self-awareness is necessary for developing a positive attitude towards life.

Examples :
• Likes: I love Maths/ I like to be neat and tidy/I like swimming.
• Dislikes: I hate rote learning/ I hate dishonesty.
• Desire:
➢ I want to become a dancer/singer/doctor/teacher/social
worker/software engineer.
➢ I want to take my parents on a pilgrimage.
• Strength : I am good in Maths/I am a good fielder in the game of cricket.
• Weakness : I am miserable in singing/I am not good in Maths.
• My positive qualities : I am caring/ I love to help old people/ I am soft
spoken to children.
• My negative qualities : I get angry very soon/ I feel nervous when I
have to talk to any authority/ I curse a lot.
• The qualities I want to change in myself: I have hesitation in starting a
new assignment/ I have problem speaking before an audience, I want
to overcome these/ I know that I am poor in my direction sense. I
should learn to understand route and route maps.
• About Myself:
o I am best when I am with my friend, I can enjoy anything when
he is around.
o I am at my worst when my uncle is around. I get irritated when
he is around.

2) Empathy: is the ability to be sensitive to another person's situation, to
understand his/her concerns, worries, fears and needs and how they feel.
Empathy works wonders when we apply it to our relationships - with our
loved ones, classmates, parents, friends, cousins and colleagues. It helps us
move closer to solutions, to resolve conflicts, and enhance our quality of life.
Empathy is not sympathy.

Examples:
• Rajesh lost his pet dog in an accident.
o His friend laughed when he heard the story. (This is lack of
empathy).
o His friend cried along with him. (This is sympathy).
o His friend said, “I understand the loss. Let us see how we ca come
out of the grief.” (This is empathy)
• Rakesh did not submit his assignment on time due to ill-health.
o His class monitor complained to the class teacher. (This is lack
of empathy).
o His class monitor spoke on his behalf and got an extension on
the submission date for Rakesh. (This is empathy).

3) Critical thinking: is the ability to analyse information and experiences in
an objective manner. It can help us recognise and assess the factors that
influence our attitude and behaviour, such as media and peer pressure
influences.

Examples:
• Suhasini walked to her school everyday. A stranger woman asked
Suhasini if she had sisters and brothers. The stranger woman offered
to drop her by a hired vehicle. Suhasini realised "Why should an
unknown person hire a vehicle to drop me?" Suhasini refused the offer.
Subsequently she came to know that the woman ran a brothel house.
• Ramesh returned from school cycling. On the way he usually stopped
at a shop to have a snack. The shopkeeper who accepted money till the
previous week suddenly refused to take money Instead the
shopkeeper offered another eatable free of cost. Ramesh became
suspicious. He refused to try the eatable. Later he came to know that
the new eatable had some mind altering substance in it.
These two examples show that we should critically analyse why others are
too friendly with us.

4) Creative thinking: Creativity is the ability to generate new ideas by
combining, changing, or reapplying existing ideas. It helps us to look beyond
our direct experience, and to respond adaptively and with flexibility to
situations in our daily lives.

Examples:
• Roshan was part of a big group of friends. All his friends wanted to try
alcohol on the last day of school. They told Roshan that it was a rare
opportunity because all of them may not come together again after
that day. Roshan thought over; last day of the school should be
remembered well. Instead he asked all his friends to go to the beach
for a swim so that it lasts in the memory forever. His friends agreed to
his suggestion.
• Geeta met her old classmate Girish after four years near her house.
Girish smiled at her in a different manner. He came closer, and Geeta
did not like the closeness. He asked if they could go to the nearest
coffee shop. Suddenly Geeta suggested to Girish, "My parents will love
to see you grown up into a big boy. Why don't you come home? Both
my parents are at home now."
Roshan and Geeta offer suggestions totally different from the situation which
makes them come out of the tight situation.

5) Problem solving skills: Enable us to deal with problems in our lives in a
constructive manner. The process of problem solving involves various steps.
They are identifying the problem, exploring the available alternatives and
deciding on the best possible solution.

Example:
• Shikha wanted to choose Biology in her X class as she wanted to try for
Medicine and related subjects. Her parents suggested that she could
take Computer Science as it was easy to procure a job these days.
Shikha could not take a decision. She jotted down the advantages and
disadvantages of each of the choices. She weighed the positive and
negative consequences of each of the options before her. Then she
decided that she had to choose her subject based on her likes as she
would use the knowledge for life.

6) Decision making: Decision making is to choose from the varied options
based on the existing knowledge of the topic under consideration keeping in
mind the positive or negative consequences of each of the option.

Examples:
• Maria's grades fall at school. She had school classes, dance classes,
basketball training, and guitar classes on a given day. She used to get
angry very often. She lost concentration on her lessons. One day she
realised that she had to choose among the various activities. She sat
down and prioritised the activities and then decided to have only one
extra activity per day in addition to school routine.
• Sheena's class excursion was scheduled on the same day as her best
friend's wedding. Her mind was oscillating between excursion and
friend's wedding. Then she realised that school excursion would come
again the next year. But her best friend could get married only once in
her life time.

7) Interpersonal relationship: Ability to establish positive relationships
helps us to relate in positive ways with the people we interact with. This
means being able to make and maintain friendly relationships, which can be
of great importance to our mental and social well being. It may also mean
being able to end relationships constructively. Positive relationships help in the growth of the individuals involved.

Examples:
• Runa and Preeti were friends from kindergarten days. Runa found
Preeti copying from another girl at school. Runa thought over, "Should
I make Preeti know that I saw her do the act." She realised that it is the
duty of a friend to point out the mistakes of the other friend. She
explained the reasons why copying would not help anyone. Preeti
understood. The friendship continued.
• Rakesh's parents and Mukesh's parents studied together when they
were young. Rakesh's parents borrowed money from Mukesh's
parents to pay the hospital dues. Rakesh's parents could not return the
money on the date mentioned. Heated arguments took place. Parents
told the boys not to speak with each other. Mukesh and Rakesh met
each other at school and discussed about the situation. "The fight is
between our parents and not between us. We can remain friends and
play with each other."

8) Effective communication: is the ability to express, verbally through
spoken or written language and non-verbally through gestures and body
movements, in ways that are culturally acceptable.

Examples:
• Arif and Reshma are members of a big group of friends. One day, Arif
asks Reshma if she could spend sometime alone with him at the
canteen. Reshma did not like the idea. She said, "Arif, let us go to the
canteen with all our friends. I am not ready for any preferences from
you."
• Ramesh found Raghav take alcohol from a water bottle in the school
toilet. Ramesh told Raghav, "I am concerned about you and your
health. I like you but I do not approve of the drink that you are taking
from the water bottle. If you have problem stopping, we will take help
from others to guide us."

9) Coping with Emotions: being aware of the predominant emotion that
preoccupies the mind at any point of time, knowing how emotions influence
behaviour, and being able to respond to emotions appropriately.

Examples:
• Asif lost the match of Table Tennis at school. He was disappointed. He
came home and screamed at his sister when she did not open the door
immediately. (Disappointment converted into anger).
Asif lost the match of Table Tennis at school. He went to his coach after
the match to explain his situation and requested the coach to give him
more training so that he would not lose next time. (Coping with the
disappointment and making use of the disappointment to learn from
the mistakes).
• Sheila was attracted to her classmate Deepak. She gave a letter to him
m entioning about her feelings for him. (Attraction being converted
into hasty action).
Sheila was attracted to her classmate Deepak. She helped Deepak for
the interschool quiz competition by collecting probable questions
from many books. (Attraction being converted into a socially
acceptable action).

10) Coping with Stress: means recognising the sources of stress in our lives, recognising how this affects us physically and emotionally, and acting in
ways that help us control our levels of stress, by changing our environment
or life style and learning how to relax.

Examples:
• The students of four sections of Class VIII were shuffled in a school.
The students who studied together from Kindergarten felt very
disturbed. They were missing their friends. Then they got an idea.
They collected together and sought their School Head Girl's advice. She
represented the matter to the Principal and the shuffling was reversed.
• Rekha did not feel confident just a day before her board exams. She
had headache and felt like vomiting. She felt very uncomfortable.
Suddenly she realised that there was no point in worrying at this last
minute. She switched on her music system and listened to songs for a
while when she fell asleep. After two hours she woke up when she felt
better and calm.

CONCLUSION

Life skills are acquired through practice and patience. A skilled person uses
less time, energy and resources to do a job and produces quality result.
Enhancing life skills enables us to lead a healthy and positive life – To
summarize the life skills, let us explain a game say football in terms of life
skills.
SELF AWARENESS – What strength and weakness each player has can run
very fast, very strong etc.
EMPATHY – Response of the team members when one of them gets hurt.
CRITICAL THINKING – Think how the opponent is planning the next move;
identify the short comings.
CREATIVE THINKING – Use a new technique to capture a player.
EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION – Verbal and non verbal communication
within and between teams.
INTER PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP – Accepting other team members as
friends and being with them as a team.
PROBLEM SOLVING & DECISION MAKING – When someone did not play as per team requirement to decide to change the strategy immediately.
COPING WITH STRESS – Identify the source of defeat and controlling the
state of mind to give a move in a positive direction.
COPING WITH EMOTIONS – Reactions on winning or losing the game.