Should my child have learnt what I refer to as essential life skills at school?

Parents teach their child as an individual. In the classroom children must learn.good group behaviour - it makes it so much easier to learn everything else.

@SunriseSunsetFullMoonjust drop your kids into school as they turn 5, and collect them again when they turn 18. We’ll bring them up for you 👌🏻

If schools are having to do it for everybody because relatively functional parents shrug their shoulders and wail 'There's only so much I can do' - how in the blazes are we supposed to find time to spot the children who are being actively neglected, emotionally or otherwise, only appear to be bulletproof because it's nothing compared to the utter shitshow that is homelife and generally actually need more support than somebody's kid crying to Mum that they didn't get to sit with their preferred person in all lessons?

Most kids cannot use a knife and fork properly. It is shocking how many stab food and chew around it like a lolly because a knife is an alien concept to them.

I agree that schools should step up to stop bullying or seriously inconsiderate behaviour. And certainly shouldn't act as though bullying will 'knock peoples corners off' and 'toughen them up' as was not unknown in the past.

However,

(1) Although 'crowd psychology' in the school situation can cause or exacerbate bullying and mean girl/ boy behaviour, moral values are usually much more dependent on home than on school.

(2) This sort of thing is not, in most cases, about 'resilience' or 'emotional intelligence', And I don't think these are life skills (though having a giood range of life skills can help to make you more resilient0, or can be taught as such. The term 'resilient' doesn't mean 'nice'; it means being able to function under adverse conditions.Plenty of bullies and criminals have been very resilient; just in the wrong causes.

It’s a prep school so has smaller class sizes and is selling the idea of “developing the whole child “. But I don’t think it’s only private schools which manage to teach these skills / qualities alongside academic subjects. I think every good school does this to an extent.

I don’t doubt your experience at all. I had some terrible experiences at school myself but I don’t think it’s inevitable or what we should settle for. I actually think it goes to the argument that trying to teach soft skills and values should be part of what schools aim for.

There is no way that my sons’ school would tolerate children laughing at each other at sports day or for performing or anything else. It just wouldn’t happen. And that creates an environment where children can try and fail without taking a huge blow to their self esteem. And if a child isn’t good at sports they will go out of their way to find something they are good at. Not to say it’s some paradise where every moment teaches some kind of moral lesson but things are definitely set up with the intention of developing good personality traits and that goes right through the curriculum and timetable.

I think it would be very difficult as a parent to build up a child’s resilience and self-esteem if it was constantly knocked down at school in the environment you describe. There’s only so much that talking about these things as a parent is going to help if the main environment where your child socialises and spends their waking hours goes against it.

@Gumballina I was thinking the same thing!

I would expect a school to promote a positive school culture and I would expect teachers during their working day when face to face with pupils to encourage and be role models of strong values such as integrity, work ethic, resilience, caring for others, being inquisitive etc etc the list is endless when opportunities arise.

But no, I do not expect them to “teach” them, that is my job.

I remember my dgd learning in kindergarten how to describe how she was feeling at that moment, which is all part of teaching children emotional intelligence. Personally I think it should be a joint effort. How is a parent who does not emotional intelligence going to teach their child?

I work in a school and have spent years providing emotional support to children, sorting out housing and access to benefits for families living in poverty, helping them escape Domestic Abuse, buying food, shoes and toiletries for children out of my own pocket as have my colleagues so your assumption that "a school doesn't care" is really offensive. Maybe some schools don't, but in every school I've worked in dedication to children has gone well above and beyond the curriculum.

Plenty of schools do try to teach these things but some parents do their best to undermine it! At DC’s primary school sports day the head has to say loud and clear before they begin “this is a COMPETITIVE sports day! The best children will win and not everyone will get a prize”in order to pre-emptively fend off disappointed parents.

You can weave it into school curriculum as much as you like, but if its not modelled and reinforced at home it is very unlikely to stick.

Schools job to teach them how to read, write etc. the parents job the teach them life skills and to take the responsibility of parenting

The first place your child should be learning this is from you.

That's not true at all. Teachers spend a hell of a lot of time supporting students with all kinds of things which are totally unrelated to the curriculum, including giving up their own time to run extra-curricular activities and trips (which often run into evenings and/or weekends). Students often need help with emotional and even medical issues while they are in school. Every single day teachers are bombarded with messages from Heads of year and pastoral staff asking them to make various adjustments and use various strategies to help with friendship issues, mental health issues and the fall-out from family problems for specific students.

It's quite frankly offensive to be told we don't care. I'd say 'I don't know why we bother!', but we bother because we care about our students, even if their parents are sometimes ungrateful and unsupportive of our efforts.

Yes, that's exactly why I said that teachers often respond with 'Yes, we already do this'. And I'd said upthread that this us taught explicitly and implicitly in schools in lots of ways.

Teachers and support staff do this all day, every day. We don’t need a stand alone lesson to say we are teaching life skills. We reinforce good manners, speak to them about being kind, speak to them when they get something wrong, encourage them to try when they find something hard, encourage them to try new things, deal with friendship disputes and mediate, deal with disappointment and how to bounce back. It’s all part of forming positive relationships and creating well rounded young people. It also needs to be done at home from birth.

It's weird reading these posts about 'parenting these days....tut tut' My schools in the 80s and 90s had the same issues as today, infact the neglect of some children was far more obvious. Kids went to school stinking of smoke, unclean and under nourished. It is hardly a new thing. The difference is schools back then didn't try to teach things about emotional intelligence or relationships, which was even worse in terms of outcomes. I agree these things are the parents' job largely, but it's a bit lazy minded to assume bad parenting is a new thing.

I would agree though that neither schools or parents teach enough about critical thinking, but I see a lack of it being rife across all generations. It isn't just kids. A reliance on social media because of poor quality journalism isn't exactly helping.

@AlphaApple - your last sentence is spot on 👌

No, it was a general comment, not directed at you.

But not all children have the privilege of active and involved parents.
I had friends at my university who were absolutely there because of the influence of their teachers, and despite not because of their parents. What a privilege to be a teacher who has made that much difference

Active and involved parents are not a privilege, they are a basic expectation. Wealth and advantage can make it easier, and some intervention to support some children and families is a good thing. Not all parents will influence their children to go to university, and I would absolutely see it as the job of a secondary school to encourage children to explore their academic potential, including applying to university.

But I say again to anyone who wants to listen. Don't have children unless you're willing to put the work in.

You area absolutely NBU to expect immediate and appropriate consequences for behaviour that disrupts learning or makes other students feel uncomfortable or unsafe in school.

As a teacher I would say both. My daughter has had a huge amount of input from school about managing emotions and I'm very grateful. Schools have services in place to help with all the things suggested.

But parents need to work with school and vice versa and as a parent I do that as much as possible. I definitely see the things you suggested as my responsibility but if my child is struggling I would also have that conversation with the school.

Our children spend a long time at school so we should expect schools to support but we can't just hand over responsibility either.

Ultimately parenting is a 24 hour job, teaching isn't so you take the lead on this.

I agree, @lavenderandlemon , they don't need to be taught as discrete subjects, but as part of learning and life.

I teach the Scottish primary curriculum; resilience, emotional literacy, health and well-being, financial education are all on there. As well as everything else you’d expect.

We do try, but there’s 30 kids in a room, all with varying needs (that are just getting more and more widespread) and we have them for about 25 hours a week, 39 weeks a year. They’re your responsibility the rest of the time, you could teach them a few things.