The early years of a child’s life in nursery school mark the start of their learning journey. It is during these formative years that children begin to have a better understanding of how things work as well as the norms in society.
Life skills refer to the psychosocial abilities and behaviours that enable a person to deal with the demands and challenges of daily life. The life skills that young children gain while attending nursery in Singapore will prepare them for their future education and life in society.
Life Skills Children Learn in Nursery in Singapore
1. Resilience
Resilience refers to the ability to be brave, curious and adaptable when faced with challenges and to cope with failure or stress. In nursery in Singapore, your child builds resilience gradually when their teacher encourages them to take on challenging tasks and gives them emotional support.
2. Respect
Respect is a virtue that is deeply emphasised. Children learn respect from observing how role models in their lives act, including their teachers in nursery in Singapore. When children are treated fairly and feel good about themselves, it makes it easier for them to react to others in the same way.
3. Collaboration
The life skill of collaboration, or teamwork, is one that can only be built in a social setting, such as preschool. Preschool is the perfect place for children to work together on class projects, or larger scale school performances.
Collaborative learning takes place when children from various nationalities and backgrounds work together. Complementary life skills of collaboration include communication and empathy.
4. Empathy
Empathy is a soft-skill that helps children imagine how others feel and think from their perspective. It is often mistaken as sympathy. If sympathy is sharing, empathy is understanding. Young learners in nursery in Singapore build up this vital skill by sharing in groups and through group work.
5. Self-awareness
Self-awareness, put simply, is the ability to “see yourself in a mirror”. Young children begin developing self-awareness skills between 15 and 24 months of age.
This skill gives them the ability to judge their own behaviour and performance, not only academically, but in social situations too. In nursery, the teachers will encourage children to be self-aware through role-play and show-and-tell activities, among others.
6. Gratefulness
Gratefulness, or gratitude, is often mistaken for being thankful. The main difference is that being thankful is an acknowledgement of benefits received while being grateful is a deeper feeling.
Gratitude is extended beyond the act of thankfulness and can be felt towards people or things that are meaningful to the person. For example, children can learn about gratefulness while attending nursery in Singapore through interactions with the people around them.
Read also: How Children Learn About Gratefulness at MindChamps PreSchool @ Mapletree Business City
Life skills that are taught in nursery in Singapore go a long way into building your child’s character. Rather than being taken aback when confronted with setbacks, your child can learn how to solve problems objectively.
There are no methods to quantify how developed your child is at the above skills, but you will begin to notice changes in your child’s behaviour as he or she learns along the way.
Written by Jamie Koh