Opinion
Importance of Teaching Essential Life Skills To Children
Essential life skills like Impulse control, self-regulation, empathy, the ability to understand right from wrong, moral values, logical thinking and courage not to bow down to bullies are what make the difference between a good citizen and a criminal!
Day 2 after the article in Mumbai Mirror was published about the teenagers who crossed all boundaries of decent behaviour!
- Parents of ‘those’ boys must introspect, how did that cherubic baby that they held in their arms when it was born turn into this devil without boundaries spewing these sick things! Reflect at what stage and age did you go wrong and then rectify it going forward.
- Other parents- did you discuss this incident with your young boys and girls? Please don’t think they don’t know about it. It's best to sit down with them face to face and without going into gory details make it clear to them that this kind of behaviour is not acceptable and if they are indulging in something similar then they should admit right now or if they know if someone in their circle is doing something similar.
- Schools its time for you to get strict too- have a meeting with your PTA, student council and come out with a better reporting mechanism so that such things can be nipped in the bud and maybe draft some rules and repercussions about such deeds. Words and actions that are not allowed for students and make parents follow them too.
- Impulse control, self-regulation, empathy, the ability to understand right from wrong, moral values, logical thinking and courage not to bow down to bullies- these are the things that went wrong in this case. These are essential life skills; these are what make the difference between a good citizen and a criminal! Time for schools to assess if they are covering these essential life skills in their ‘curriculum’. Time for parents to assess themselves if they are covering these life lessons in their parenting.
- Time to also think about a more pertinent punishment for the boys rather than just removing them from the school. They will only become another school’s problem.
It's time for schools and parents to start working together instead of working against each other. After all is our future that is at stake here.
About the author:
Dr. Swati Popat Vats, President, Podar Education Network, Early Childhood Association India and Association for Primary Education & Research (APER). She is also a renowned parenting mentor.
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