What are the Life skills and what help does it provide to individuals?
Life skills are actually a type of behavioral training that helps individuals in various situations of life to have the best behavior and attitude. Every human being has weaknesses in behavior, and these weaknesses cause great damage to individuals and have a negative impact on their relationships. In this regard, we must to say that the Life skills guarantee the mental health of individuals in the society.
Facilitating the learning of life skills is a central component of programmers designed to promote healthy behavior and mental well-being. To be effective, the teaching of life skills is coupled with the teaching of health information and the promotion of positive (health promoting and pro-social) attitudes and values.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines the life experience as “Life skills education is aimed at facilitating the development of psychosocial skills that are required to deal with the demands and challenges of everyday life. It includes the application of life skills in the context of specific risk situations and in situations where children and adolescents need to be empowered to promote and protect their rights”.
The life experience training program is a preface program aimed of raising psychological levels and preventing psychological- social problems designed by the WHO.
In 1993, WHO introduced ten experiences as the main experiences in life, which learning each of these experiences is a timely process that needs effort and in the result, it will lead to success in many dimensions of life.
The tenth experiences are:
First Experience: Experience in problem-solving
Second Experiences: Experiences in decision-making
Third Experiences: Experiences in self-awareness
Fourth Experiences: Experiences in critical thinking
Fifth Experiences: Experiences in creative thinking
Sixth Experiences: Experiences in effective connections
Seventh Experiences: Experiences in creating and interpersonal
Eighth Experiences: Experiences in Sympathy
Ninth Experiences: Experiences in adjusting the energy
Tenth Experiences: Experiences in coping with emotion and coping with stress
The Life skills provide mental health for individuals and community. Meanwhile, it encourages them to live better standard life levels. These skills should be told and taught to children at a young age in order to be secure in their minds.
As I mentioned learning Life skills is significant and necessary task. However, learning the experiences of life and using them may not be easy for everyone. To get this matter, visiting a psychiatrist or psychologist is a very appropriate effective task. You can also take benefits from your live experiences by reading the related books and participating in seminars and conferences in this field. We should not forget a point that “healthy individuals = healthy society”.
