ABSTRACT
Background: Life skills are essentially those abilities that help to promote mental wellbeing and competence in adolescents as they face the realities of life. Life skills education is to educate the young people in schools and beyond to develop an organized, acceptable, and beneficial lifestyle. Objectives: The current study aimed to assess life skills, self-esteem, and self-reported practices among adolescents in Kolkata and to find out the correlation between life skills and self-esteem. Methods: Descriptive study was conducted from January to March 2020 among 422 adolescents between the age group 13 years to less than 18 years from three selected schools under Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, Kolkata, using the multistage cluster sampling technique. The data were collected by self-reporting questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS software (version 20.0). Results: Most of the adolescents had low life skills (52.4%) and average self-esteem (64%). About self-reported lifestyle practices among adolescents that they do physical exercises daily in the form of walking (52.6%), cycling (52.1%), swimming (21.8%), and yoga (17.8%). Most of the adolescents responded that they spend leisure time listening to music (43.4%), watching television (43.1%), drawing (36.3%), reading (40.5%), surfing mobile (46.7%), 51.9% of adolescents had smartphones, and that they are using for academic purpose (55.7%), playing games (35.5%), entertainment (19.9%), and to read the news (19.2%). Only 5.2% of adolescents were using substances (tobacco). Conclusion: There is a need for ongoing life skills training program for adolescents in school to increase their self-esteem which helps them to face the challenges of changing life situations.