As a parent, you know that your student has relied on you to support and care for them. In short, they have been dependent on you. However, as they grow into young adults, they will need to learn the skills necessary to help them live independently. Northwest College Support believes that life skills are very important for your student to learn. Your student can learn and improve their life skills through the Northwest College Support Summer Program. This helps them to do well in college and thrive as a young adult.
Value of Learning Life Skills
Life skills are the skills that help your teen deal with life's demands and stressors. This often includes critical thinking, communication, and time management. However, it also includes self-awareness, self-management, and interpersonal skills. While your student may do very well at some, it is common that students heading into college lack certain life skills.
Learning life skills is very important for your student. It helps them to be able to communicate well with others. In turn, this improves their relationships, friendships, and college success. Additionally, life skills help your student manage themselves. This includes managing their time, keeping up with coursework, and managing their feelings and reactions. When your student learns life skills, they are more able to make good decisions for themselves and do well no matter what college life brings.
Learning Life Skills at NWCS
The process of learning life skills at Northwest College Support incorporates support, structure, and practice. With these three elements, your student can learn skills that are helpful for them to manage the stresses that come with living independently.
The learning process is unique for your student, due to their unique needs and learning style. Therefore, your student has the chance to not only learn the basics of life skills but incorporate them into their life in a way that truly works for them. As a result, your student is more likely to use these skills in the long term. This helps them to be more successful both in college and into adulthood.
Life Skills Coaching
Northwest College Support offers life skills coaching as a part of many programs, including the Summer Program. When your student works with a life skills coach, they are treated as a unique individual. Therefore, the coach starts with learning about who they are, including their strengths and weaknesses. This helps the coach to have a clear picture of what skills your student already has and those they need to either improve on or learn.
Each life skills coaching session will look different. However, the overall goal of the sessions is to break down each life skill and help your student to both improve their awareness and learn a new skill. One example is working on time management. Helping your student to understand the concept is the first step. However, they also need to have a clear picture of how they currently manage or do not manage their time. As they improve awareness, they can learn to incorporate time management methods that help them to do a better job at managing their time and schedule.
Practice With Support
At Northwest College Support, your student would not only receive support but also a chance to practice. When learning any new skill, practice is important. Having the freedom to try a skill out helps your student to have a better understanding of what it really means and looks like to practice life skills.
However, they are not left to their own devices. The combination of practice and support is important for them to truly learn skills. It gives them support and care when they hit a rough patch. This helps to maintain motivation and ultimately helps them to learn the skill better in the long run because going through challenges with support gives them more information and practice.
Therapeutic Intervention
If your student has or does struggle with mental health challenges that impact their life skills, they are not alone. Mental health has a huge impact on your student's life skills. Therefore, at Northwest Colege Support, therapeutic interventions are used to help our student to heal their mental health.
Mental health disorders like attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and others change how your student thinks, focuses, and processes. These changes can make it difficult for them to manage time, focus, and communicate well. Your student's specific difficulties will be unique. However, their mental health is important to consider when learning life skills.
Therapeutic interventions can help your student to find a way to care for their mental health needs. This may include working with a counselor or other methods that give your students relief from the challenges they face while helping them learn important life skills that help them be successful and thrive in college.
Life skills are very important for young adults to learn. However, they can be hard to learn and practice when living at home. As a parent, you know that learning a skill takes time. If your student struggles with their mental health, the process of learning life skills may be even more difficult. At Northwest College Support, we understand how important it is for your student to learn life skills. However, we also understand that challenge. If your student is struggling with the transition to adulthood, or you are concerned about their transition to college, we can help. Call us today at (877) 485-2776 to learn more about our programs and how they can help your student thrive.
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