What life skills are you teaching your children?

Question

Besides the obvious, what are some life skills you're teaching your children/teens besides the standard core lessons you need to be teaching them - i.e., in part, my child is learning how to grow up and be an independent and responsible person, as well as be able to buy groceries, do laundry, cook, and pay bills, as well as take self responsibility for her actions.

Answer 1

My parents taught me and are teaching my sister all of the above plus:

~ Participation in politics is essential to being a responsible citizen

~ Music is a gift from God and all children/people should be given the opportunity to play the instrument of their choice

~ Be yourself.  

~ Don't dress like a slob.  First impressions and the way you dress will determine how people treat you.

~ How to (politely) complain when customer service was not up to par in a way that will fix the problem.

Answer 2

Particular to my daughter, she has a bad temper (Just like me)  So I am helping her learn the skills my Mom taught me to reign in her passion and recognize when she is getting upset before she gets too upset.  We also belive in volunteering and working together.  Everyone has chores that are age appropriate and we let her decide when she wants another.  She is 5 and pushes in chairs after dinner and turns off the dining room light.  She is also responsible for taking out the compost to the compost pile.  She just began asking for a third chore.  My son is 2 and he is responsible for 'helping' put things on the table for dinner.

Answer 3

thats what my mom taught me and my brother too do, and im soo glad that she did. its nice not to have to depend on others, that i can rely on myself.

Answer 4

We teach the same things cooking, cleaning, budgeting, shopping, laundry andso forth. We are also teaching them to check the oil and other fluids. They are also learing typing (an essentail skill in todays world).

Answer 5

We work on all the things the local blind rehabilitation programs make the blind kids work on... Only difference is my mom and my friends actually expect me to move out (next spring) and get a job and go to college and do for myself, whereas the publi schools here that have blindness programs and the local program I mentioned above (which is run by the county board of education) don't seem to expect much of anything out of their students... So instead of wasting time learning how to operate a microwave and make a hot pocket, I've been creating meal plans and shopping lists, shopping for groceries, and preparing more elaborate meals like roast beef and vegetables, spaghetti and meatballs, spicy chicken and rice, home made hamburgers, chicken noodle casarole, and so on. We also did a lot of baking and tied it in with Chemistry lessons. I learned, thanks to blind friends as well as mom, how to create a shopping list on my computer and then transfer it to my phone (which has a text-to-speach program installed) so that I can listen to my shopping list in the store, or simply show it to customer service if I need help finding things. I learned how to pick good produce, and how to manage a budget.

Outside of the kitchen, I've been growing a garden of herbs and learning how to tend and harvest and dry them to use for cooking or garnish. I also just recently started growing flowers, learning what grows best where, what attracts butterflies and what attracts less desirable insects, what types of plants can't grow near others, and so on. I also learned how to test the soil myself, and I've been practicing strategies for keeping the garden organized without my eyes (carefully marking where plants haven't sprouted yet so wont step on them, etc)

I learned how to sew over the winter holidays when I made a blanket for my boyfriend and embroidered his initials on it. Since then I've been mending my own clothes when they get holes in them, and sometimes even mending his.

Recently, we took a "field trip" to a bank. Durring my mobility lessons (learning how to get around on the streets and travel independently) I always took note of banks that were on routs I'd learned or that seemed especially common (since I'll be moving out on my own in another town very soon), and I used this information to decide on a bank for myself. Mom took me there to talk to people and ask questions and learn about how a checking account, bank card, loans, interest, and credit work and open up my first checking account.

We do a lot of career exploration activities. I still don't know for sure what I want to be, but whenever I get an idea of someting I'd like to try, I research salaries, job description, how the career could change over the next ten years, and so on and compare that to cost of living, my ideal work environment, and how that may change over time (if I have kids for example). Sometimes I'll even look up someone local who works in the field and arrange to interview them about their career. Or I may find opportunities to experience what a career might belike. Currently, and you may find this hard to believe, I've taken interest in graphic design. (Yes, I know I said I'm blind, but with the little residual vision I do have I've found that there is artistic potential). I was recently offered a contract with the California Center for the Blind (a friend who now lives in CA reccomended me) to design their new logo, and I've been really excited about it.

Along with careers and banking, we've talked and researched many other important adult issues such as finding good medical insurance, home insurance, dealing with codes and what you can or can't do with your own home, practicing self advocasy since a blind college student and future blind employee, employer, mother, potential homeschooler, etc will need a lot of it, paying and organizing bills, participating in government (I'm voting for the first time in this election, so we payed lots of attention durring U.S. Government and I made sure I understood how government works and what issues will affect me and my future family so I'll be ready to cast my own vote...which is quite different from my mothers, I'll have you know). And lots more. Seeing as my schooling takes place in the real world on a daily basis, there's always some new real world issue to learn about and be prepared to face.

We have been spending a lot of time lately talking about finding a place to live when I move out next spring. For now, we're assuming I'll be in a fairly big city (since the school I hope to attend is in our state's capitol), and that I wont be livin in a dorm. I've done research and found apartments that would suit me, learned to take into consideration the distance I'd have to walk to get to class, to a store, a pharmecy, whether I'm on a bus rout or not (since I'll need one), what is included in the rent (utilities, water, internet, etc) the size and layout, what policies would apply to me if I lived there, and if I'll e able to afford it given an estimated income for the time. I even phoned some of the landlords as if I was planning to rent the apartment and learned what they expect of their tennents, what their responsability to us is, and what questions i should ask when looking into a place to live.

While visiting with my boyfriend, I got the opportunity to work with some tools and learn how to do things like dig holes for posts, pour concrete, build a railing for a ledge or staircase, feed and groom a horse, use a drill, take apart and replace parts in a computer, and so on.

I know for certain that I want to be a mother some day, and there's a good chance I'll marry someone who is blind like I am, so I've been doing a lot of research on blind parenting techniques. I've also met with blind couples raising sighted children to ask questions and learn tricks of the trade, and I attended a childcare class with the National Federation of the Blind (among many other non-blindness-related community childcare classes). I've learned about strategies like tying bells in a toddler's shoe laces, using a syringe (without the needle) with notches made in it to mark precise measurements to give a baby medecine, pulling a stroller behind me while holding my cane out in front, feeding a child and changing a diper by touch, using strollers that convert into car seats and converting them by touch, using a talking thermometer to take a child's temperature, giving a baby a bath by touch, and lots more.

This weekend I'm leaving to spend a week alone with my boyfriend in St. Augustine for his graduation, so I got to learn how to plan a trip on a budget, how to find an affordable hotel that suits your needs, how to plan where you want to go when you wont be able to drive from place to place like most people, how to budget but still have a good time, etc. (Also got to do some historical research on St. Augustine. that was fun).

Time management is a huge one for us because it's something I wasn't especially good at when I was in public school (because your tame is mmanaged for you when you're in public school). As a homeschooler, I'm expected to be on top of time management, finding efficient ways to fit in school work, all the activities I participate in, stay on top of bus rout schedules when I'm out alone, find time for unstructured social time with my friends, time for cooking dinner when it's my turn to or when I'm out of town with my boyfriend (he's also blind and out of school now, so we both work together on some of this), time for errands like the bank, the library, the store, scheduling doctors appointments, etc. It's been a great help to me, and I know I'll be ready to handle the chaos of college with good time management skills like these.

As I said before, my schooling takes place in the real world, not in a classroom, and there's always some real world issue that needs to be dealt with, some challenge that needs to be overcom3e, or some new lesson that needs to be learned. I love homeschooling :)

Answer 6

haha, i don't have kids, but let's see. I learned to cook, (haha, I can cook a lot of dishes a lot better than me ol' mum). I learned to do laundry, clean house, dishes, how to sew, which could be helpful later. I learned how to tend to gardens, i learned to balance a check book, an prolly a whole lot more that has come to be a big help

Answer 7

Putting your statement in context, realize that you extend the cultural norms of a particular group with what you have expressed and it is obvious you participate in a nuclear family rather than an extended family.

Children choose their parents when coming into this world and yours chose you for their own reasons.

What best serves our children is providing them with safe space in which to become who they want to become whether we like it or not.

Answer 8

I teach the same to mine, I don't want to send him out into the world not knowing the basics of life. So many people do too much for their kids and they end up hindering them when they experience real life for the first time. In addition, I try to teach my son compassion and understanding towards other people, to not be judgemental and to always try and keep an open mind no matter what your personal beliefs are.