ESSENTIAL PERSONAL LIFE SKILLS are a vital part of our human development and education. They consist of skills and behaviors that help everyone know and understand themselves and others, manage their emotions, and achieve healthy life goals. They also include learning how to establish and maintain healthy, supportive relationships, as well as making responsible decisions.

Of course, all parents want their children to be healthy, do well in school and get a good education, and ultimately, get good jobs and become productive members of society. Not coincidentally, employers also want to hire people who have the key traits that are learned through essential personal life skills curricula.

Since parents want their kids to get good jobs, and since employers look for the traits that are learned as part of essential personal life skills education, why are they not being taught to all children as a part of quality preschool education for every child, and as part of the routine curriculum in our schools from kindergarten through 12th grade?

If we think of academics as being like a car that drives you, then essential personal life skills are like the steering wheel that guides you.

You can’t drive a car without a steering wheel, right?!