life skill training
michaelSeptember 28, 2019comment (0)

7 Essential Life Skills Training for Middle and High School Students

Here are 7 life skills that can be utilized by students to maneuver the complications of adult life. Read below to understand each life skills in detail.

  1. Money Management

Money talk is always the hardest but the most important. College students suddenly have to start paying bills, prepare a budget, and manage expenses with the little money they have. If they never receive this life skills training during school, it is highly likely that they will end up with huge debt, drop out of college, or turn to parents for financial help.

Money management can be taught by openly discussing the pros of operating within a budget, tips about savings, and tracking the expenditure. Parents and teachers have a huge role to play here as they can offer fixed pocket money and assign class projects with fake currency to students and ask them to survive the month without asking for more money. When this is combined with the knowledge delivered at school, students can learn to manage money effectively.

  1. Time Management

When in college, there is just too much to handle. Studies, part-time job, co-curricular activities, leisure time, and more. The sad part is there is no one to remind to follow a schedule and complete everything when there is still time. Hence, this awakening comes hitting the student after everything has been already spoiled.

School teachers and parents can encourage the use of time management apps to help manage time better. You don’t literally have to ask students to download a software-based application. But, you can teach to manage activities with a simple to-do list or Kanban method. Later, when they have an option, they can utilize different mobile-based applications to achieve the purpose.

  1. Shopping for Essentials

Unless you are expecting students to live off pizza and fast food for a very long time, teachers and parents need to include this important life skill training in the schedule. Every student should understand how to buy basic grocery, compare different products, and check the expiry of the products. Further, they should understand how to do it within a specific budget. So first, they need to know how to have a budget which can be achieved with money management life skills training in middle school. Then, they should move to essentials shopping.

School authorities can create intuitive sessions and use case scenarios to help students understand the basics of shopping. For instance, a case question where you offer two same products to students having a slight difference in expiry date or ingredients. Then, you can ask them to choose the product which they would buy and why.

  1. Vehicle Management

Vehicle management may seem irrelevant but it is a huge responsibility. However, it is simple to deliver this life skill training in middle schoolwithout any hassle. There is no need to go the extra mile to discover new learning methods. Teachers and parents can deliver the knowledge of how to maintain a vehicle. For instance, teachers can teach about the oil and cleaning requirements of a car. Parents, on the other hand, can ask their children to assist whenever they go for car repair so that they practically learn about vehicle management.

  1. Apartment Management

Not every student would want to live in the dorm room. Many may prefer taking a separate house on rent. To help them search for the right apartment, which is also safe, is a necessity.

Hence, it won’t hurt to have a little heads up in school about the lease, rent management, repair, and other similar aspects of taking an apartment on rent. Further, it would be beneficial to prepare some red flags that can indicate that a particular apartment is not the right place. This can be in terms of overall safety, building safety, neighborhood, etc.

  1. Professional Requirements

In college, students already reach halfway of becoming a professional. It won’t hurt to teach some of the skills before they even enter college.

This life skills trainingis also hassle-free and simple for teachers. Sometimes, teachers can send weekly assignments through email. During this activity, the teacher should reserve the right to reject assignments that have come in physically in the form of hard copy. The assignment can also be rejected if the student has not properly added a description in the mail itself.

Practical learning will help students remember these small things when they enter college or professional world.

  1. Mental Health Management

Mental health is the most neglected aspect of life skills training in middle school. This neglect later leads to grave consequences. A study (the United States specific) revealed that 18.2% of the population suffers from some type of mental illness. This is like every 1 in 5 adults are suffering from mental issues and sadly, many never talk about it. For most of these adults, the issue is not too complicated to handle.

To deliver mental health life skills training to middle school and high school children, you can ask a counselor to take regular sessions. Also, allow students to individually meet the counselor to discuss issues. This will encourage a sense of understanding and responsibility in difficult times, which will help students overcome short-term stress, anxiety, and depressed feeling.

 Conclusion

Life skills trainingis part and parcel of effective school learning. It is necessary to learn subjects such as mathematics, science, etc. but it is also necessary to get acquainted with life skills training in middleschool. Learning life skills early in life help in avoiding unnecessary stress, anxiety, and risks of adult life. Hence, read the above tips and implement these life skills training programsin the school curriculum.

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life-skills training programs
michaelAugust 27, 2019comment (0)

How Can Life Skills Training Programs Can Help Prevent Drug Addiction?

Drug and alcohol addiction among teens and adolescents is one of the major problems affecting communities and countries around the world. The drug problem has been growing since the sixties and has now come to a head with the invention and promulgation of life-threatening products such as fentanyl, which are many times as addictive (and potentially lethal) as heroin.

However, keeping youngsters away from drugs is no easy task. Communities, government agencies, and educational institutions have been trying to do so for decades, with varying degrees of success. While the overall rates of drug intake and alcohol consumption have gone down over the years in most parts of the country, individual communities are still plagued by the problem of substance abuse, particularly among the youth.

Reasons for Drug Intake and Addiction

In order to effectively curb the phenomenon of drug addiction among the youth, educators and authorities must first understand the reasons for substance abuse, including alcoholism, opioid addiction, and marijuana usage etc. Some of the major reasons why large numbers of teenagers and young adults often feel compelled to use drugs are driven primarily by the fact that they lack the proper life skill training:

  • Peer Pressure

Human beings are tribal by nature and we all want to feel a sense of belonging with our families, friends, and communities. This desire for belonging is especially strong during the teenage years, when kids are yet to fully understand and accept their own individual identities. At this time, they are especially vulnerable to the influence of the peer group, and the fear of rejection can be debilitating.

Many teenagers, therefore, end up taking drugs just because their friends tell them to. They don’t want to feel left out and alone, and in their minds, the only alternative is to succumb to the demands of substance abuse. Drinking and doing drugs is common among certain groups of young adults, and embers of such groups may feel that they cannot say no to drugs without losing their friends.

  • Stress

The teenage years can be stressful and anxiety-inducing. This is because teenagers have to deal with academic pressure, the onslaught of hormones, social responsibilities, love and heartbreak, and the expectations of parents and teachers, all at the same time. This is particularly the case once they enter high-school and are told to start thinking about their career.

All of this can often feel like too much, especially for children who had, until then, lived a relatively stable and sheltered life. When stress and anxiety is overwhelming, the appeal of substance abuse is immense.

Alcohol can help you get rid of your inhibitions for a time and do as you please, while opioids can be used to dull the anxiety and feel a sense of peace for a little while. Many young people succumb to such addictions just to temporarily escape the pain of growing up, and the expectations levied upon them by society.

  • Media Representation

Movies, TV shows, and music can often depict substance abuse as a sign of status and even ‘coolness’. And there are nothing teenagers want more than to be perceived as being ‘cool’ and interesting. Alcohol companies understand this, and promote their product accordingly, a tactic that was also used by tobacco manufacturers a few decades ago.

Growing up under the influence of pop culture, children often internalize these messages (if only on a subconscious level). They are later drawn to the mystique and allure of substance abuse as they reach teenage because for their entire lives they had been receiving the subliminal message from a variety of media outlets, that drinking and doing drugs is ‘cool’. After years of subtle indoctrination via pop culture, this perception can be hard to break.

The Role of Life Skills Training

Life skills training, delivered by trained personnel through well-designed drug-prevention programs, can help youngsters break this self-destructive cycle of substance abuse. Life-skills training helps adolescents understand the dangers of substance abuse and its long-term consequences. Moreover, it also helps them understand how to handle situations effectively and safely without succumbing to the allure of drugs and alcohol.

Some core elements of an effective life skills training program are:

  • Drug Resistance: During a life-skills training program, youngsters are taught how to avoid any social pressure or internal desire for alcohol or drug intake. They are taught how to safely extricate themselves from situations wherein they might be compelled to take drugs or other restricted substances.
  • Decision Making: Under such programs, adolescents are also trained to critically evaluate a situation and make effective decisions in a thoughtful and independent manner, without being influenced by external factors such as the opinions of friends and misleading media representation.
  • Self Management: Life skills training programs help children learn how to manage their own emotions, both positive and negative. They are taught how to deal with stress, anxiety, loneliness, and social rejection in a healthy and productive manner, without resorting to self-destructive behavior of any kind.

In Conclusion

A well-designed and high-quality life skills training program can help teenagers and adolescents avoid the pitfalls of substance abuse and avoid addiction in the long run. Schools, communities, and local governments should come together to ensure that all the children of the area receive this essential training from a young age.

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