In this digital, convenience-centric and consumable age, children are spending more and more time in front of screens and less time with parents, learning manual, useful life skills that will help them to live independently (hence they don’t leave home until they’re well into their 20s or later!). We need to address this situation!
Skills we all took for granted as children are dying out and too many children are growing up without the skills or attention span to make a bed, wire a plug or cook anything that doesn’t come in a microwaveable packet…
While we all talk about “life skills”, these are often referring to intangible skills, such as being responsible, time management, organisation, self-confidence, self-awareness and money management. These are all very valid life skills, but are we forgetting to teach our children the basic manual skills they need to simply live independently?
Some of these may seem really obvious, but here are 20 things our children should know how to do before they get to 16:
- Clean a bathroom – hygienically!
- Cook individual types of food: pasta, meat, rice, eggs (boiled/scrambled), vegetables, mashed potatoes
- Electrical repairs – change a bulb, wire a plug
- First aid – dress wounds, take temperature, treat a burn, administer CPR
- Household washing (colours & whites, stain removal, find the right program etc)
- Ironing – temperature control and different items, including shirts
- Know about fuse boxes – what they do and what to do when lights go off!
- Maintain a car (check oil, water, tyre pressure; change a tyre/wheel; fill petrol)
- Make a bed properly
- Make some basic meals from scratch: pancakes, cakes, Bolognese, cottage pie, roast dinner
- Mend a bicycle tyre puncture
- Peel and chop vegetables/fruit
- Polish shoes – properly
- Recycle – what recycles and what doesn’t
- Sew a button, mend a hole, basic sewing
- Stack a dishwasher properly (i.e. rinse off, load from back to front, where everything goes, so that it actually washes!!!)
- Read a book from cover to cover
- Know basic food hygiene rules
- Vacuum the house
- Write a proper letter (polite) and address an envelope
You may look at this list and think “Jeez I can’t do half of these things myself!” In which case, you can have fun learning together!
About us: Wondrous World is a unique storybook created from each letter of your child’s name. See for yourself here: www.wondrousink.com
Written and Published by Sophie Martin for Wondrous Ink, June 1 2016
The Word Bird 