Basic Essential Life Skills Need to be Re-introduced

     Society's escalating obsession with comfort, convenience and ease is dramatically reducing our competence to handle normal daily life. Parents, the education system, and organized religions are collectively failing to prepare children to assume basic adult (never mind leadership) roles.
     We need to formally re-introduce training in basic essential life skills! This means striking a healthy balance between the current extreme of rewarding people for having a pulse, and the old-fashioned abusive marine boot camp.

     By skillfully*** encouraging people to "go the extra mile," they "practice calling up emotional reserves until they trust that they have a stockpile of conviction. ... building heart ... is a preventive public health strategy that can inoculate against the potentially negative effects of stress and trauma. (With skill and will, this could become) an essential tool in the primary prevention of stress-related disorders ... and a critical skill that promotes having an optimal life. In addition ... heart can be developed after exposure to traumatic stress. Heart is critical to overcoming*** the sense of devastation and helplessness that develops from traumatic experiences.
     ***when training heart in (those) previously traumatized, it is critical to monitor their tolerance of the training to avoid overwhelming their reduced capacity to handle stress."
       Bell CC, Suggs H. Using sports to strengthen resiliency in children. Training heart. Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am 1998; 7(4): 859-65.

     See also: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/04/capacity.html

Anne Bastedo   http://www.serenityimages.ca