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I have much younger kids, and we also think this is very important. It seems like everything in a kid's life is so nerfed. For us it starts with letting the kid
by ksdale 8y ago
I have much younger kids, and we also think this is very important. It seems like everything in a kid's life is so nerfed. For us it starts with letting the kids do things on the playground with an actual risk of injury (obviously we're trying to avoid actual serious injury, but we think the kids need agency).
It also involves letting them make decisions that can have bad outcomes that are largely harmless when they're young, like getting a stomach ache from too much candy, and clearly connecting the act to the consequence. So far it's worked pretty well, our kids have a good idea of what's healthy and what's not.
We're also going to do something like set up Etsy stores for the kids so that they get experience with buying supplies and making a product that's good enough for a stranger to buy, manipulating the web page (and eventually we'll move on to them making making their own Shopify or Wordpress sites), and running social media accounts for the businesses and what not. We're already getting one store started for our five year old who's really interested in making money (for now).
We're doing a lot of it now, but we're planning on having them take on more and more responsibility as they get older. Instead of doing chores (or in addition), they'll be actually interacting with the world in a way that's analagous to adulthood. Who knows how it will play out, but we're excited to see what happens.
- alsetmusic 8y agoTeach them to do their own laundry. I ruined most of my clothes when I moved out and an 18 yro has no budget to replace a wardrobe. I’m still annoyed that I wasn’t taught something so simple.
- astura 8y agoWhat sort of mistake can you make to ruin clothes? Use bleach?
- MagnumOpus 8y agoWashing them at 90 degrees, drying stuff that isn't supposed to be dried.
- astura 8y agoThat's one or two items,the GP said they ruined "most of my clothes."
- amp108 8y agoLeave a pen in a pair of jeans and wind up with ink spots on everything.
- crooked-v 8y agoAnother 'real world' skill your kids will really thank you for eventually is cooking a full meal from scratch, including knowledge of meat temperatures, spices to use, timing different dishes, and being able to calmly handle the inevitable 'the kitchen is filled with smoke and all the fire alarms in the house are going off' cooking mistakes. Another (and related) field would be basic first aid, and more importantly being able to handle injuries more-or-less calmly even when you've cut your hand open or dumped a bunch of very hot water on yourself.
- ksdale 8y agoExcellent points! Cooking is definitely something I'm grateful I picked up from my mom growing up and we really try to involve the kids in the kitchen as well. And first aid is a great skill as well that I hadn't thought of. My wife was a life guard so she has a lot of good instincts kind of baked in from that that she's been passing on to the kids. Thanks for the tips!
- toomanybeersies 8y agoI had to cook dinner once a week from when I was about 13 years old, so by the time I left home at 18 I was pretty confident in cooking. I was shocked at how may people at university were completely incapable of cooking. Boiling water was about the most complex cooking skill they had. I have a colleague who's a fresh graduate and still lives at home, she admitted to me that she has literally no idea how to cook. Like even something as simple as spaghetti Bolognese (i.e. the stuff from a jar, just add ground meat and pasta) would be beyond her.
- KozmoNau7 8y agoI find it even more troubling that people like this apparently cannot read instructions and follow them. There's a simple stepwise list of instructions on the box/can/jar. They're making it as easy as humanly possible, short of actually providing a person to cook for you, and yet some people still can't do it.
- 8y ago