EGYPT: Life Skills Children Need

EGYPT: Life Skills Children Need

ID-10097438What life skills do my children need to learn to live a happier, more fulfilling, and successful life? This is a question that I asked myself while thinking about what my children need to learn. I started by looking for what exactly the definition of life skills is, and this is what I found on Wikipedia:

 “Life skills are behaviors used appropriately and responsibly in the management of personal affairs. They are a set of human skills acquired via teaching or direct experience that are used to handle problems and questions commonly encountered in daily human life.”

It wasn’t that easy to find the answer for my question as I found many, so I decided to start by checking what skills I found out, when I grew up, that I needed to learn and could make a difference in my life if I learned them earlier.

I thought about how to highlight the importance of these skills to my kids or how to tell them to start building these skills. I came up with the idea of presenting them in the form of a list of tips to apply in their daily lives to make them a habit:

  1. Work hard and Play hard: Work hard when it is work time; and play hard when it is fun time.
  2. Listen: Listen attentively to your heart, your mind and to others to understand what they really want to tell you.
  3. Ask questions: Be curious and ask questions to understand and check with others about what they want to say and if it you understood right.
  4. Follow your passion: Find out what your passion is, what you love, and what you do effortlessly and do it.
  5. Learn to solve problems: Problems are essential in life, so learn to find solutions for the problems not to avoid them.
  6. Be courageous and face fears: Do not avoid what you don’t like because of fear of failure, it is your opportunity to learn something new and strengthen your will power muscle. Take a small risk every day by trying something new.
  7. Do make mistakes: Do not be ashamed of making mistakes.  We all do, and it’s a must for learning.
  8. Let go of criticism: Don’t let criticism negatively affect your life. Sometimes people criticize others just to feel good about themselves so find out why they are criticizing you. Are they really caring about you? If yes, consider it; otherwise let it go.
  9. Learn:  Life is a long learning journey, so never stop learning and developing yourself. Commit yourself to learn something new every day.
  10. Be goal-oriented: Learn to set goals and work toward these goals; it is very powerful as it allows you to live a purposeful life.
  11. Work in a team: Cooperate and help others. Working in a team allows you to build new skills like good communication skills, leadership skills and unselfishness.
  12. Be grateful: Focus your attention on who you are and what you have, not what is missing in your life, and be grateful for what you have in hands.
  13. Learn to manage your resources wisely: Be careful about your health, your money and your time. They are your most important and precious resources so don’t waste them.
  14. Give amply: generosity in giving and sharing everything like material stuff, emotions,  praise, encouragement and love can bring a lot of happiness and fulfillment; as it allows you to win other’s love and respect.
  15. Dream big: Don’t fear to dream big dreams and to follow your dream. Just believe in yourself and in your ability to achieve your dream.
  16. Believe in yourself: Be confident and believe that you can do it.
  17. Never give up: Persistence is key factor for success. “Winners never quit and quitters never win” ~Vince Lombardi

These are the skills which are essential, from my point of view, for my kids to acquire. What other skills do you think your kids need to learn to live a fulfilling and successful life?

This is an original post for World Moms Blog by Nihad from Alexandria, Egypt. Nihad blogs at  Aurora Beams Life Coaching.

Image courtesy of “Girl Writing Abc Shows Kid Learning” by Stuart Miles FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

Nihad

Nihad is an Egyptian woman, who was born and has lived her whole life in Alexandria, Egypt. She says, “People who visited this city know how charming and beautiful this city is. Although I love every city in Egypt, Alexandria is the one I love the most.” She is a software engineer and has worked in the field for more than twenty years. But recently she quit her job, got a coaching certificate and she is now a self employed life and career coach. She says, “I believe that women in this era face big challenges and they are taking huge responsibilities. That's why I have chosen my niche -- women looking for happiness and satisfaction. I help and support them in making whatever change (career change, life change, behavior change, belief change…) they want to bring more satisfaction and happiness in their lives.” Nihad is a mother of two lovely boys, 15 and 9 years old. She states, “They are the most precious gifts I have ever had. I madly love them, and I consider them the main source of happiness in my life.” Our inspiring mother in Egypt can also be found at Aurora Beams Life Coaching.

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