Family Life Education

Family life education may be a new concept in our education system. It is essential to be acquainted with some definitions of family life education so as to clarify its basic concepts. There are many definitions of family life education. Some people take it as the use of different tools and techniques so that the youth could be trained to be effective and successful parents and good family members. This has been defined and explained in different terms. There are many people who state that family life education refers to the process of establishing ethical bases so as to protect, preserve, extend, and develop monogamy family. As a matter of fact, the family life education can be defined as the mode of imparting education so as to help people of younger generation bring changes and adapt themselves for adulthood, marriage, parenthood, ageing. It also encompasses social relationships in the socio-cultural of the family and society.

Family life education includes all educational measures which in any way help young people to prepare to meet the problems of life that have their centre in the sex instinct, and inevitably come in some forms in to the experience of every normal human being.

Now based on aforesaid definitions, we can come up with conclusion that family life education refers to the broad programme in home and family living designed to impart knowledge regarding practices, values and attitudes affecting family relationships.

The importance of family life education is related with the issues of providing assistance to youth in learning how to-

• adjust with the physical, emotional and social changes .
• have better understanding on sex maturity and cultivate good sex attitude and behaviour.
• be responsible and dedicated towards family and play one’s effective role for the well being and betterment of the family.
• develop and establish good relationship among members in family, friends and other people of the society.
• be knowledgeable and skilful for worthy adult life, marriage and parenthood.
• make oneself wise in able to take right decisions at right time.

In short, family life education is the need of the present busy and competitive world. People along with their jobs are to be responsible to their family members. They need to know the importance of family. They should have good knowledge on their role and responsibilities in establishing a happy family life that can be even an example for others. All these can be possible through family life education.

Safe Motherhood

Safe motherhood is a process of protecting the mother from having complicated pregnancy and the problem of childbirth. A mother dies of pregnancy complications in a minute throughout the world. About half a million women die each year of pregnancy related cases in the world. This condition is found worse in many parts of the developing countries. Therefore, it is aimed to reduce the maternal mortality by one forth by 2015. To achieve this goal, the health of mothers is to be made safe. If we take care of our mothers in every respect of the complications, we can easily fulfil the above mentioned aims. Therefore, safe motherhood has become a part of reproductive health and rights.

The safe motherhood programmes should be conducted in an integrated approach with primary health care service, which are to be provided to all the population especially to the most vulnerable and under-served groups. While providing service to safe motherhood, the following should be emphasized.

•      Adolescent females and males must be provided with information, education and counselling to help them delay early marriage and unions, premature sexual activity and the first pregnancy.
•      A special programme should be implemented to address the nutritional needs of women of child-bearing age especially those who are pregnant or breast feeding.
•      Prenatal care and counselling with special emphasis on high risk pregnancies and prevention of STDs and AIDs should be given.
•      All the birth should be assisted by trained persons, preferably nurses and midwives but at least by trained birth attendants.
•    Mothers and other related family members should be provided with adequate knowledge regarding family planning to make a happy family.

So it is very necessary for the society and the family to give great care and attention so that the complications during pregnancy and after birth of the baby are reduced and the health of the mother and the child is in good condition.

Role of Parents in Educating Children

Education should be gentle and stern but sometime high-quality input does not result in high-quality output. Whatever is good to know is difficult to learn. The difficulties in learning are the serious results of different factors, different problems which can kill the curiosity and enthusiasm of the children. Children need love especially when they do not deserve it. All children have their own qualities and they are best in some way or the other. They are in search of those who will make them feel important; who believes them, who cares, inspires and encourages them understanding their feelings, emotions and necessities. Today there are still stories of humiliation, hate and fear in the learning life of children. The dispute and argument that sometimes arise between father and mother at home and the fear of child from parents may adversely affect the learning behaviour and capacity in a child. The main problem that kids face today is learning good manners. Too strict and critical parents make them irritate, angry, depressed, guilty, emotionally and spiritually exhausted increasing and self esteem. So, the children are not performing well at school.

On the other hand, children take the hurtful and destructive criticism of parents and teachers personally and feel attacked, leading them towards willful disobedience and academic problem. A wise parent hears one word of children and understands two. It is the sensitivity and intellectual challenge that makes difference and in children’s life by the intensity of their beliefs and action connected with sense of value that is within the child. Some children however elaborate power struggle, argue for their views, values, identities and commitments, and define a journey of hope based upon a set of ideas. It is all because they are in the presence of someone (parent) whose devotion delights the emotion and cognition from the perspective of emotional intelligence, one father is more than 100 school teachers. So, the entire job of parent is to make children capable of being honest which is the first and the foremost education that children must be provided. The moral behaviours and the words of love and respect is learnt from the parents. So parents are equal role in motivating children to the right path. Parents should manage time for their children and get timely report on their behaviours and progress on study and so on. They should give great care and attention towards their children and show a great love and affection.

Learning Autonomy

The learners must be self directed and self motivated in their own learning strategies. This phase or stage can be referred to as learner autonomy. It is a situation in which a learner is totally responsible for all the decisions concerned with his/her learning and the implementation of those decisions. A good learner must have good understanding on what they are learning. They must have keen interest in reading and understand the matters so as to become autonomous learner. The practice of being self directed towards learning promotes learner autonomy and will certainly enable learners to achieve better learning achievements. So, learner autonomy is more concerned with learner strategies, responsibilities and willingness than with teacher resources, notes and explanations. This does not refer to reduce role of teacher; it rather makes the learner better active themselves so that they can get better resources from the teacher for their learning.

Autonomous learners are:

·         Motivated and enthusiastic

·         Confident in his/her ability to learn

·         Aware of why he/she wants to learn

·         Self-reliant

·         Unafraid of making mistakes

·         Good risk taker

·         Willing to assume certain responsibility of his/her own learning

Role of teacher for developing autonomy in Learner:

The present condition of Nepal clearly shows that most of the teaching learning classrooms are learner friendly as in the name. The teachers are still present following ‘Jug to Mug’ theory in classroom. Existing teaching learning process still is beyond learners’ psychology, interest, capacity, talent, etc. If we teachers really want out learners to learn something for their real development, we must encourage the learners towards automaticity. There is no any alternative: for this a teacher can-

·         Drive the attention of learner towards learning

·         Identify the learner’s difference

·         Use technologies and multimedia to develop and promote learning

·         Encourage learners to explore something new themselves

·         Access the learners to different resource materials

·         Play the role of facilitator

Role of School:

To explore students inner or hidden capacity it is needed to make learner autonomous. Providing books, large classroom, comfortable furniture is not sufficient for learners but making available following things the school can co-operate the autonomous learner.

·         Comfortable library

·         Self learning centre

·         Science lab

·         Practical classes and required tools for practical, etc.

Role of parents:

To develop self-determination and self-monitoring capacities in learner is the state of learner autonomy. To be an autonomous learner, the learner alone can’t do anything if the necessary things are not provided to him/her. Providing favourable atmosphere for learning is the responsibility of teacher, school and parents. Parents can help:

·         Creating learning environment at home

·         Trying to solve his/her problems

·         Providing necessary things for his/her study

·         Consulting with teachers time to time

Learning is life long process. It starts from cradle and ends in grave. Anything which we learn ends within short time or becomes life-long depends upon the learning process. If the learner is self-motivated, enthusiastic, aware to learn, the learner doesn’t forget easily, he doesn’t irritate from learning and doesn’t take learning as a burden instead if it is provided forcefully against learners interest as teacher’s method or strategy, unwilling the learner can’t easily, it may be forgotten easily then the whole teaching learning will be failure.

So, every school should create favourable environment to promote learning autonomy.