Greensprings School, Lagos, has appealed to parents to teach their children soft skills like self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and goal-setting to mention a few.
Speaking at a parents’ forum recently held at Greensprings School, Lekki campus, a child counselling expert, Mrs Lauretta Ani, advised parents to encourage self-awareness in their children as it was an essential skill they needed to cope in school and beyond.
Ani in a statement signed by the school told parents to teach their children how to name their emotions and ways of responding to these emotions.
She said, “This knowledge will help children open up appropriately to school staff on challenges they have in school and be provided with adequate help.”
She emphasised that “Many children have busy parents who do not have time to listen to them.”
Ani urged parents to take time to listen to their children and validate their emotions by teaching them how to know what they were feeling and how to respond adequately.
She hinted that schools also had a role to play in helping children to be self-aware, by complementing the efforts of parents.
“While parents should do their part to make their children self-aware, schools must also design programmes that will reinforce their children’s self-awareness. For instance, at Greensprings School, we teach our students about self-assessment, goal-setting, character development, and emotional intelligence – and all these help them to become responsible individuals. We also organise frequent forums aimed at discussing proper ways of raising children,” she concluded.
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