01 LS4C - Introduction

Life Skills for Children

Children are not born with the ability to deal with life stressors.  Children do not think like adults.  Schools do not teach children life coping skills.  In my opinion, teachers are trained to discipline children to behave, to make children listen, and to teach the way they were taught themselves.

Children are people too.  All people have unique learning abilities.  Some learn by listening, some through visualization, and some through feelings.  All of us definitely learn through three senses, however, one of them will be foremost in our ability to absorb knowledge.  From my experience, schools do not differentiate between these learning abilities.  Children are expected to sit quietly in their seats and behave.

Any child that dares to push the system becomes labelled as difficult.  Often the parents are guided to drug their children with pharmaceutical medicine in hopes to “calm” the child down.

In my opinion, the school system needs to get on a more personal level with the children they are teaching.  The problem is the size of the classrooms.  There seems to be no time to teach the children on a personal level.  Therefore, many children are slipping through the cracks.  When they become frustrated, they can easily become a problem of the system.

What about teaching our children life coping skills?  What skills are they being taught in school?  Do you know?  Or do they push those children into some sort of counselling programs?  How do you suppose a frustrated child, a child labelled as a problem, will relate to a counsellor?  Most times, the parents or family of the child are deemed to the problem creating the issue.

Schools expect all children to behave.  Children are expected to do what they are told, when they are told to do it and how they are told to do it.  This is the old way of society, the way I was raised in the 1960’s but times have seriously changed since then!  Yes, society has rules, and children must be taught to respect those rules or there will most definitely be consequences. Of course the teachers need cooperation in their classes, but many teachers talk with disrespect towards their students and then expect to be respected.  What ever happened to, “You get what you put out.”  If you want respect, treat others with respect.  If you want cooperation, treat others with cooperation.  If you want love, give love.  Why does the school system demand respect without respect?  Most teachers “pretend” to be respectful in front of the parents, however, more and more children are advising their parents that the teachers and principals are always “nice” when parents are around.

With the apparent behaviour issues in the schools and the push to medicate them pharmaceutical drugs, why are they not adding “Life Skills” into their curriculum?  There are a small group of schools that have changed their detention to learning how to “Meditate” with great results!  Some children have been taught “Emotional Freedom Technique” to help in coping with life with very good results.  If meditation and EFT are showing promising effects in helping children cope why is the majority of school systems remaining in the dark ages of shaming children into behaving? 

In raising my own children in the 1990’s and early 2000’s I found it difficult to find a balance in teaching my children a good, decent way of life.  Society, and mostly the public schools they attended, wanted them to listen, learn and behave.  My children had an innate ability to think out of the box, yet, society was constantly trying to push them into a box and make all children behave the same.  Children are not the same.  They are all unique individuals that eventually grown up to unique adults.  The outspoken, free-spirited children are often the target of adults from all walks of life trying to make them “normal”.  However, if these children grow up to be outspoken and free-spirited adults they seem to be the most successful in life.  Something seems terribly backwards here and most of society is missing the point.

As an adult I have completed decades upon decades of research on personal growth, learning my own life coping skills to get through my life journey that has at times been very turmoil.  Everyone that walks this planet eventually faces a life-changing situation that will literally bring them to their knees.  It is at that time in their life that they will have to make some serious decisions.  Some take this as a challenge to thrive into a new way of life.  As the saying goes, “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade”. 

Unfortunately, others crumble and fall.  This is part of the problem of our drug-addicted society.  Of course, teaching children about the dangers of drugs and alcohol is a necessary tool.  But when life gets tough, drugs and alcohol are often the crutch of choice.  Why?  Because it seems like the easiest solution, it makes them feel better if only temporary in the moment.  They do not think of the consequences, they think only of instant gratification. 

It is becoming increasingly important to teach our children life coping skills.  Our children are the next generation to grow up and run our country.  When the going gets tough, let’s teach our children how to get even tougher by coping in healthy ways. 

Our children need to know how to rise when they fall. 

They need to know that life is one huge learning experience. 

They need to know mistakes are learning what not to do next time. 

They need to know they are accepted and loved even though they make mistakes. 

They need to know people care about them. 

They need to learn they are okay, life is full of ups and downs.

They need to learn to ride the wave of despair.

This blog details my personal healing journal over the past 2+ decades. I am not a medical professional and offer this information freely as personal research only.

Please click here to read my disclaimer.