Saturday 7 February 2015

I seriously think that two subjects are missing from our schools' curriculums.

I seriously think that two subjects are missing from our schools' curriculum.

The first is financial awareness that will teach our children about money, loans, interest rates, credit cards, credit status and how not to end up with a pile of debts before you're twenty. I am very proud to say that this is something we taught our daughter. She had a credit card quite early on, but used it sensibly paying off the total due each month simply to build up her credit rating. These she has continued with and the result is that at the age of just twenty-two, she was accepted for a mortgage. Way to go, babes!

The second is self-control. People seem to fly off the handle at almost anything these days; the answer to their problems seeming to be violence and/or abuse. Ignoring the fact that it's not pleasant for the recipient—or those around them, it doesn't do the perpetrator any good either. They are also a victim. The physical abuse that is imposed upon their body by increases in blood pressure and hormones et cetera has a proven effect. The correlation between anger and illness is known. Those who explode with anger are at a greater risk of strokes and sudden death. But there is also the injury that they do to themselves at the time. An angry driving punching a car window is a good example. Those things are toughened. The only thing the 'doer' is going to break is his hand, but the anger causes such a huge lapse in judgement that self-preservation is forgotten. If we learn the skill of self-control, we could achieve so much more in these situations: resolutions rather than things like injury, stress and maybe a criminal record.