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

[SunriseSunsetFullMoon]

like resilience and emotional intelligence?
Situations that arise out in the public domain (educational establishments) that lead to confrontation or bullying or disappointment - is it all my responsibility as a parent to solely educate my child, or should the schools be doing it in the classes?
Some educators see what's happening and appear to choose to ignore the situation, and missing an opportunity to teach better behavior as well as incurring the consequences of ones actions. Or is that just to hard a job for them? And if it is - why?

AIBU to expect immediate consequences for behavior that creates fear or annoyance in others?

Has your child learnt how to critically think through situations - not to rebel, but be responsible and making informed choices. I can only do so much from my point of reference - surely the education system has more to offer than what I can see and have experienced with my child.

Would be interested in your thoughts and experiences.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

@Gumballina I was thinking the same thing!

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.

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.

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.

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?

@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 👌🏻

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.

Thanks for commenting:- I disagree that it should just be on being book smart - schools should be providing an education that is well rounded that goes beyond textbooks and exams. Yes being book smart is part of the foundation, literacy, numeracy, science, history, and critical thinking are foundational. These provide tools for understanding the world and navigating careers, but being book smart doesn't help them deal with real world problems, how to deal with anti-social behaviour, how to deal with the emotions they feel when coming across certain situations, or even what their feelings mean. Being book smart doesn't help in practical hands on skills, being book smart doesn't give you the experience in real world situations - you are dealing with different scenarios, situations and people all the time. You need to be able to develop intuition which comes from time understanding how things feel, sound, or behave when something’s wrong. One needs to develop practical skills and muscle memory.

So going back to the anti-social behaviour/bullying scenario - is this not behavior that is being acted out by children who are not getting the parental education, or are they modelling what they learnt from their parents behavior?

How to "deal with real world problems, how to deal with anti-social behaviour, how to deal with the emotions they feel when coming across certain situations, or even what their feelings mean" are all the things parents should be teaching their children! It's shouldn't be up to schools to teach these things

It never ceases to amaze me how little parents seem to know or care about what schools actually do (and yet often feel very qualified to complain about them). These comments about school being only about 'book smarts' (silly phrase anyway) are very wide of the mark. Are people honestly not aware of the huge amount of pastoral care schools do? Or the many ways in which schools try to enrich their students lives through things that aren't in the curriculum?

OP, you are confusing formal education with parenting. HTH

Schools do a huge amount of emotional literacy, resilience work etc however it’s only a small part overall because those skills really are learned at home. School can give your child tools but if home life doesn’t support kids growing, taking risks, being able to function in relationships then there’s no much school can do about it. It’s for parents to make sure they teach their children the life skills they need.

Resilience and emotional intelligence in my mind naturally come (or not) from parents, and are not subjects you can sit children down and teach.
Best thing parents can do is give a child a stable happy home with lots of love and care. This builds emotional intelligence, and resilience as children will face the world more confidently with a secure safety net at home.
Teachers do need to provide a certain level of pastoral care but ultimately are there for children to read and write and learn maths etc..

This is actually why I get annoyed at homework, by the same token. It's not my job to sit my child down and force him do worksheets or read when he doesn't want to. I'm his mother, not his school teacher. And I don't expect the teacher to do my job either.

Absolutely untrue.
Schools have do to personal social and health education and sex and relationship education.
If a child needs extra support with these, they should be offered mentoring, counselling, social skills groups etc.

Which includes pshe

Disagree so hard - I work with schools and this is the bred and butter of what I support schools to help their students with any many of them do a fantastic job!

Watch the everyday hero's ted talk by Jaz from the apprentice

No. Parents should teach their kids that and support the learning that school offers academically. “Life skills” - that’s just another word for “upbringing” and that’s on parents & family

A lot of teachers are sadly lacking all these skills themselves, so I wouldn’t want them ‘teaching’ my children to be as ineffective in these areas as they are.