Parents urged to teach life skills

A CHILD'S early development stage should be surrounded with love in order to bring up a disciplined and positive individual, said a motivational speaker yesterday.

Wan Ali Wan Ibrahim, a senior instructor from Pusat Bahagia, shared his experiences with teachers and course participants from Asean countries on "Experiences in Motivating Teenagers".

The social emotional aspects of human development as stated consisted of three stages; early development (aged zero to 12 months old), "terrible 2s" (aged two) and teenagers, he said during the first session of the facilitation and motivation skills in vocational and technical education training (VTET) forum at Seameo Voctech.

"By the time they reach the development stage of 'terrible 2s', children begin to know how to say 'no'. At this stage, they claim their autonomy."

"By the time they reach their teenage years, they start to form groups, listen more to their friends and they tend to believe their friends more than their parents," he added.

Children with responsibility at home tend to grow up as well-disciplined individuals, he said.

Parenting styles were also taken into consideration in a child's development. Four kinds of parenting styles were outlined during the talk, including authoritative (firm and loving), very unauthoritative (firm and unloving), laissez faire or easy-going (not firm but loving) and neglectful parenting (not firm and not loving).

The reasons of neglectful parenting were classified as parents who are too busy working and socialising, family discord, extra marital affairs, abusive (language usage), criminal lifestyle, incarceration and destitution, he said.

He said that revenge can be turned into a motivational factor as long as it has positive elements.

"Counselling, games, life skills training and anecdotes motivational skills and quotes are some of the factors that can be used to facilitate growth. Another factor is the understanding of the other person. By understanding others we can handle even the difficult ones," he said. (NJA1)