Importance of Life skills along with Basic Education
There is so much into our lives, once we become parents. Parenting is indeed a tough nut to crack, as our upbringing draws the future of our kids. Whether we regret or boast, it all depends upon the social and environmental factors we introduced our kids to. And thus to me, a mom of 3 year old child, what has mattered more in life are the Life skills – values, positive teachings, financial literacy, and creative learnings. To me these skills are more than attaining a Gold medal in Secondary.
Some real life incident’s I have seen :
[I can recall an incident which happened last year during Demonetisation, when few kids we lured to change their valid currency notes in exchange of higher denominations. Unaware of demonetisation, its financial impact, how their families were dealing with the banned currencies, these kids went ahead and exchanged valid currency with the to-be banned ones. A big group of these 8year old kids were cheated.
I’ve seen a very close family of mine being a victim of serious child Psychology. Their child, just 7 or 8years old, had never meant Failure. Throughout all his demands were fulfilled and he was never introduced to any Life struggles, leave struggles, not even a “No”. His one loss in a school match got him locked in his room for more than 5hours. Just imagine, his parents went frenzied for all those hours. ]
But, what are the reason behind such incidents?
When the whole nation was talking, these kids knew nothing of what the finances were, how were they being managed and how not succumb to the fraud. This child had never been taught resilience. He had a weak Psychology and could not accept his simple class-level defeat. Are we conscious of Positive or Aware parenting? Are we giving our children the true life skills while growing up? Are there enough resources to supplement us with these learnings?
Well, these are the objectives of INSYL to improve every child’s future, not by teaching the basic Science and Maths, but by inculcating the real life skills. They are here to deliver true life value’s in the form of beautiful interactive stories. They explain the vital concepts like Developing Confidence and motivation, determination, working on goals, Keeping the focus right, managing Finances and time in the right way.
Being a mama, I have pledged to support INSYL in their crowdfunding campaign towards their endeavor of 3 goals for our young children :
1. Financial literacy for kids :
It is a way of securing their future. Most of the teens (>50%) in their “moving away from family home” are into debt and its impact on health and wellbeing are really dreadful. Today’s youth overspend their income to maintain the grand lifestyle’s, desires and thus they have nearly NIL savings. Some even default on their credit card repayments and thus arises the need of basic financial literacy.
Teaching Financial literacy right from Kindergarten helps kids to manage money in all ways possible. This helps them spend wisely at all times.
What can be our Role as a Parent?
1. Budgeting :
Get your child to prepare small daily budgets, be it a grocery budget or your basic accessories budget. Create situations of allocating and surviving in less budget. This imparts a sense of financial awareness and responsibility. It will always help them slowly, in managing their day-to-day finances. They will be aware of their emergency funds and big spends.
2. Inculcate Savings :
Kids need to know how important it is to save money. Savings can help in getting good credit score. This can in turn help to get better financial options as better Mortgage rates and even other loans easily.
For this,
- Start financial literacy as early as kindergarten. At this stage kids love Story books and it is the right time to induce the morals, values by the way of story telling. Get some Financial Literacy story books from INSYL as : Debt Dragon’s Dilemma, Budgeting Badger and more. Refer the image below.
- As kids grow, provide them with hands-on learning opportunities, so they can use their finance skills. Allow them to make their budget and saving plans.
- Parents should discuss family finances with their kids and look out for their suggestions in a healthy way.
- Create separate accounts for Kids, allow them to earn their money and save it.
- Allow them their piggy banks and encourage savings. Show them the worth and power, of what a huge saved amount can get them.
- Create Emergency funds out of their saving and make them aware of how and when to use them. Create challenging situations.
B) Positive Psychology :
It is a science and it is helpful in building a strong character for our kids. A child observes and begins his learning from the family. It is the responsibility of a parent to help their child identify their strengths, accept their weakness and work around them positively. It is we, who can create situations to help them develop grit and resilience. We need to allow them to develop faith and regards towards teamwork and society. The acts of compassion, honesty, gratitude need to be learned via day to day experiences.
Negative emotions can never help a child to grow strong mentally and achieve happiness, success and satisfaction in life. Happiness and satisfaction is an art which can be learned from the environment, social factors and an early education on these skills.
Positive Psychology helps in :
- Developing positive emotions with the end result, a resilient child full of positive traits.
- It focuses on the strengths of child development which is far away from pampering and hindering kids path towards exploration.
- It enhances kids to take their decisions themselves, let it be wrong and let them fail in their decisions. As a parent, be vigilant and observe, but let them get up from the fall and bounce back to achieve their goals.
- Helps relieve any anxiety or Depression related issues in kids while growing.
- Says Bye to negative emotions and welcomes positive emotions and healthy competitions.
Every child has been bestowed with a special blessing from GOD and life is all about discovering and nurturing that potential. Positive Psychology not just deals with good things, rather makes you learn how to manage the mess created to turn the lessons into a good one! It is an important life skill which needs to be inculcated in the life of kids.
Get it right from the Kindergarten age, go ahead and give your kids these good reads from INSYL, teaching some real basics of Positive Psychology.
C) Enhancing Creativity by the way of Art :
Beginning of arts in early years can help kids in the development of their intrinsic qualities as an expression of their interests, getting more creative with a better sense of imagination. It also helps a lot in developing Social skills and emotional development. It creates a sense of confidence and self-esteem in a child right from the beginning and gives them the scope to develop their own imaginations and thus help scale up cognitive development.
Ready to back INSYL for helping our kids in teaching these very important life skills?
Back the budding great minds for INSYL project on Kickstarter right now. It is indeed what our kids need today to focus more on Life values and Psychology. As of now, they have 4 products :
1. Published Books: (In plan from 2018)
Short interesting Books on Positive Psychology and Financial Education.
2. E-books:
Double Paged E-books in Positive Psychology & Financial Education.
3. Audio Books:
Audio-books in Positive Psychology (Minimum 8 minutes) & Financial Education(minimum 3 minutes)
4. Study Guides:
Study Guides for Positive Psychology & Financial Education has 15 pages
INSYL is also working on their app and interesting memberships will be announced soon. So get ready, give a thumbs up to their project for our little ones and read out loud some of the E-Books you get in reciprocation. Give them a shout out!
Happy Building Life skills in Kids!
Wow I hadn’t heard about these books and these are so useful to teach kids life skills
Very important. My parents inculcated in me the concept of saving from a very young age and this sticks no matter how old you get.
Wonderful post, I wasnt aware of these books
This is really an informative post for parents out there 🙂 Thanks for sharing.
Nothing better than INSYL story books to impart real life skills to young minds.
This books surely give a real hope and light in young minds..
Learning life skills is one of the most important things parents are entrusted to teach their child… These books will be so helpful for parents!
Very interesting read. In a good way! I’ve always been interested in Psychology and this fits the bill.
These are really important for the kid’s overall development. So nice that INSYL has come up withese guides
This article surely makes a lot of sense…never heard about these books ever before….but greay initiative
Wow such an important topic. These are great and helpful books to read, Money saving is such an important thing, especially for the kids.
These books seems interesting and useful for kids knowledge. Thanks for sharing about these. Your tips are also very important for parents.
These INSYL story book are great way of teaching kids… It’s similarly important to keep negetive thoughts away and have positive thoughts only
Hadn’t heard about these books and Im glad I read your post. As parents life skills shoulf be our first priority to help kids succeed
This is so amazing!! I am truly thankful for this information. I never gave much thought about life skills(you must think im a bad mom?), but after reading your post I am really considering it for my children
It I’d really important to teach your children right life still. INSYL is really helping in this regard
I didn’t know about INSYL books.. They are very good for kids to learn
Brilliant writing Yes kids need to aware of real life skills.. This story books are so helpful
It sometimes becomes challenging to inculcate such values in kids…these books can be really useful
Thanks for sharing really helpful as I was not aware of such books
These books sound great. I think its important to teach kids at a young age about money and not expectingto get everything on a plate and to learn to save, budget etc. Itz definitely an important life skill which should be taught in schools.
My husband and I often discuss this. We always want our kids to learn the value of money and know that it is hard earned. Thanks for this informative post.
INSYL makes me think that it is important not only to be Book-smart but Street-smart aswell! One can be very academically clever but is a fool in the real life. It is chocking to see not only the young adults but the adults spending money more than they have afford. For what? To have a nice car but you will be working and stressing 10 times more at the end. A very important lesson and something to be learnt as a very young age.
That’s what, we have a craze to travel but we spend on other things in a minimalistic way!! We need to help kids grow in those environments and let them struggle to make them strong beings
INSYL books really look like a full personality development for kids. Not only academically good, but awareness with other things like how to manage finance, Psychological behaviour, thinking positive, become a good citizen is also important for raising children. These INSYL books look like have all in one education. Great post!
It’s so important to teach real-world elements alongside the traditional education and I wish I had been told more about financial independence and how to deal with this as a child! The first time I did my taxes it was like Russian roulette, completely terrifying and I’m not sure anyone made it out alive.
Hi there! This is a really helpful post, I really enjoyed reading it and wished that I had some of those pieces of advice a little earlier or maybe even during my own childhood. Thanks!
Love his post! Def need to teach children real life lesson rather than book knowledge. I never thought about it the importance of financial in early age. Will keep in mind 🙂
You are right there. We sometimes over pamper the kids and end up paying for it later. Also as you say reinforcing positive behaviour is paramount!
These books look like a great way to help parents teach children life skills from a young age. So many somehow miss this out and can really have problems. By giving them a basic knowledge in their youth it can make a big difference.
Your post is very thought provoking and it is indeed important to teach kids about finances and basic life skills early on. Thanks for sharing.
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this article should be viral. If you want to be a parent, read all the books that exist about how to be a good parent.
Great list of books! I always wonder what kids are reading these days. I’ll definitely remember this when I have my own kids! 🙂
sounds like a really good tool! Making kids understand some basic financial points will make their life so much easier when they grow up.
This is all such great information. These books are amazing for kids. Definitely looking forward to the app!
I love the financial prep books for kids! What a great idea. Because kids learn so much easier when things are put into an interesting animal story mode for them.
My 10 year old is a bit older for these books but she does love reading and we have read all kinds of books that show life skills I think it is a great snaky way to get our messages across if it is put into a story written by someone else they tend to pay attention a lot more
My parents always taught me to stay positive and told me to follow my dreams. They supported me in aspect of life. They also taught me the importance of savings from a very young age.
As a mother, this was a really interesting read. My children are still quite young but I had never considered giving them a little money for them to budget with so they start to understand the concept of finance – really cute idea which I plan to implement!
As a mum, this was a really interesting read. My children are still young, but i love the idea of giving them a little bit of money for them to budget with! So cute, and something that I plan to implement.
As a mum, I found this really interesting. My children are still young but I loved the idea of giving them so money that they have to budget for. So cute, and something I hope to implement.
I totally agree with you that life skills are a fundamental element of children education, and should be taught from early ages.
Love the idea of aware parenting – such a great point of consciousness & a vital piece of healing our nation. Rather than having education be about testing, we need to consider a more integrated approach to raising the “whole” child. Real life skills, economics, compassion, service, the ability to take care of themselves, emotionally, fisnancially, physically, or otherwise is all about them having awareness of what is balanced and healthy for themselves. ??
Thank you so much, indeed I too believed to these values and INSYL is just doing the right thing. Would you like looking at their kickstarter campaign page ? Here is link for your reference – kickstarter.com/projects/105364219/great-minds-storybooks-for-kids-on-success-and-ach
This is such an informative post and an interesting read too. Thanks for sharing.
These area ll really helpful tools! I agree the upbringing of children is so important 🙂
This is such a great post. Financial literacy is so lacking with kids these days. Thanks for sharing.
This is so true and sadly this is something not many children learn nowadays but it is so important for their future. Sheri
I love the idea of teaching children to be financially aware. It instills a desire to properly manage money in the future. A lot of people that are terrible with finances are because of their upbringing.
Great parenting tips. Kids should know the real financial situation of the family and the importance of saving money. Creative art is another important part that parents should focus which can enlighten the ways of their kids with self confidence and positive attitude.
This ks very informative. Having a positive attitude makes a lot of difference
I enjoyed the points you mentioned here. The point about Financial literacy is very important. I’m amazed by how many people do t know how to manage their money.
Financial literacy is something we can teach our kids at an early age. And the earlier they get practicing at it, the better they become with it.
Financial literacy is still something I’m trying to learn and I’m 30! I wish my parents had given me a book on it as a child.
These are some very informative tips for the new age parents. I always believe positive psychology have a huge impact on kids. Parents should teach kids to accept their weakness and work on it instead of comparing with other children. Always remember that every child is different.
So truly said Shraddha, and Thats why I was too happy to support INSYL, who helps parents imbibe these values in our kids by the form of stories!