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

Universal education was mainly to increase productivity of the country, not to stand in for neglectful parents.
Schools are now expected to be social services as well as schools.

There was a thread on here recently about emotional resilience being taught in schools and I was shocked how many were saying :
ridiculous !
id pull my kid out ,…
sick of hearing about developing resilience, there should just be more support !!

it made me think we are doomed …
people want to be supported / rescued / fixed and have no sense of agency / responsibility

Like setting up kids on homework apps took absolutely ages at home then half the time they forgot passwords etc and it logged them out.

At primary school they never had to remember passwords for anything and work was done in homework books and handed in then marked.

Then suddenly they have to get used to tech. Maybe schools could introduce this much later - say Y10/11 along with kids not having smartphones until then. IT lessons in Y7-9 being taught how to use it.

DD1 had to use Teams at home in 2020 - I'd barely seen it myself at work at that point!

I'm far from a Luddite but found the app blizzard on DD2 starting secondary school in 2020 unbelievebly difficult. Their cohort was born just as smartphones were invented yet they were expected to have the familiarity of someone working in an office for the last couple of years.

I would hope that parents do teach their children about resilience and emotional intelligence, if they wait until they start school at 4 or almost 5 years old then that's a lot of missed opportunities and will be a bit late in some cases!

PSHE is statutory in schools so it has to be taught. Primary schools, from my experience are particularly effective at teaching resilience, kindness, integrity etc. I might add though that too many children, again from my experience, would be role models in PSHE lessons and could all talk about kindness, kind words and hands, making good choices, being a good friend etc. etc. And 5 minutes later they'd be causing havoc in the playground or smacking Mum on the way home.

So in answer to your question, it is taught in schools but the responsibility for a child to show and live these behaviours lies firmly at the door of the parents.

as it's essential for anyone studying, yes absolutely, but that's part of academic education.

Exactly this.

If we care about breaking the cycle and improving outcomes for disadvantaged children then of course we should look at a rounded education and developing every aspect of the child

confrontation or bullying or disappointment - is it all my responsibility as a parent to solely educate my child

yes

Even if the school had to handle this, most parents would disagree with the way it's taught anyway. Not everybody believes in the "be kind" cop out.

Why have children if you're going to leave teacher of all the essential life skills to strangers?

I do think schools should develop critical thinking skills, which are needed now more than ever but the rest you refer to us down to parents.

No.

I saw it as mine and dh's job to teach our children resilience, responsibility, critical thinking, logical thinking, independent decision making and consequences from their decisions. We engaged them in age appropriate debate from.an early age and tought them to see someone else's pov.

Why on earth would it be someone elses job to do this.
As parents , its our role ( or it should be) to teach discipline from an extremely early age. However some people think discipline is a bad thing when it only means to teach. In the case of our children its showing what is and what isnt acceptable way to behave.

I thought one of the ideas of universal education was to try to deal with problems associated with poor parenting.

Not sure how that is achieved as parents are required to be so much more involved than 30 or 40 years ago, which just exacerbates inequality between those who have parents who are involved, and those who don't.

I’m not actually sure why you are asking the question.

If my children behaved badly at school I would consider that entirely my (and my child’s) responsibility to correct.

I really can’t imagine turning round and telling the school that they had “missed an opportunity to teach better behaviour”.

Similarly I expect teachers to maintain standard discipline in class but if another child behaves badly then I would consider it the role of their parents to correct.

I expect the school to educate, it’s up to my husband and me to make sure that our children are decent human beings.

Any reason why you’re not engaging with the thread you started then?

If my child has a disagreement with someone and tells.me. I look from both perspectives and ask my child how it looks from the other persons side. So I go impartial. Always on my child's side but this has enabled my eldest whose 15 to think critically about things. I look at how something can be good and bad again I encourage them to do this as well.

Also teach kids to be good people not 'nice'

Schools see our children for more hours in the week day than we do. They are also at the see as much of their social interactions as parents do. I think they have a duty to help
build their resilience and emotional intelligence where they can. There’s just not enough staff or time for each child to do so.

It's parent responsibility and also, worth noting that parents often do not support schools when we try to develop these skills (emailing about the smallest thing, not letting child have sanctions etc etc)

The first isn't too surprising given the numbers of posters on here who have no qualms about lying.

To the OP, I'd agree with the consensus on here. It's the responsibility of the parent but should be modelled in school.

My children's school have done a lot of work on the "learning pit" ( I think it's called that), it's such useful character building stuff.

The teachers I remember, the teachers who made a difference and who stick with me decades later are the ones who helped shape me as a person.

While I don't dispute that this role should sit with parents too (and I certainly see it as my job) , I have always felt "it takes a village to raise a child".

This is why I am so grateful I can afford and have found great extra curricular hobbies for my children

My daughter's dance teacher for instance very much knows she isn't just teaching dance, but skills for life

My daughter's drama teacher used some of their (online) drama lessons in the pandemic to help them process and work through the enormous changes.

They didn't "have to" do those things, but they understand the privilege of being able to shape young lives

Children learn resilience as they meet each problem, hurt, or disappointment that they encounter, from babyhood up. It's how their parents respondand help them manage those hiccups, that teaches them resilience.

A teacher can't push a child over in order to teach them to cope with the pain of a graze on the knee. They can't deliberately make them fail at something, or engineer a friendship falling out, in order to teach them emotional resilience.

I really don't know what your think a resilience lesson could look like in a class of 30, @SunriseSunsetFullMoon .

What's with the people shouting in capslocks on this thread? Bizarre

Anyway, I see the primary role of personal development as resting with parents. But great teachers,.and great schools, do far more than just impart knowledge.

Agree with this. I think it has to be a team effort- both home and school encouraging and enforcing being a decent person. Children need consistency. My son who has SN gets a lot out of PHSE lessons in school for example (these have covered things like bullying) as class discussions are massively helpful. But he’s known that it’s wrong to be mean to other people and why since before he started nursery school, because I taught him that, although his understanding has obviously improved with age.

There’s not much point in only school teaching resilience if it’s not implemented at home.

I think you need to be really clear about what you’re asking in your post, as my suspicion is something quite particular has happened and it would be far easier to reply if there was context attached.

It is my responsibility as a parent to explain equity and equality which might be ever you’re getting at. Ie why things seem unfair when actually the school are being equitable to a child who has SEN for example. It’s also my job to allow resilience to grow through providing a safe space to recover after disappointment. Loads of my parenting happens in the car while we’re travelling to and fro on the school run and to extra curriculars. So there’s always time.