Lost Life Skills...
Educating your children is not just about what gets taught at school. In fact, I think that in many respects, the subjects and subject matter that is taught in the classroom is probably of the least value when it comes to practical implementation in “real life”. I mean I can honestly not think of ONE single solitary occasion in my 39 years of living, where I have needed any knowledge on algebra… Now, I do understand that this is a broad generalization, but you catch my drift.
I saw a video a little while ago about how real “life skills” should be brought back into schools and I honestly couldn’t agree more… and the younger the starting age, the better. If you just observe the lack of “life skills” ability in young adults currently in their twenties and sometimes thirties, you will very quickly be able to see the dire need for it. The world has changed so dramatically in the last twenty years… it is such a stark contrast to the way things were “back in the day”.
Women no longer know how to cook or sew, men don’t know how to use their hands for any kind of trade or anything else practical, books are read on tablets and kindles and the list goes on. Everything has become about instant gratification and so many fundamental skills are being lost and forgotten.
Every kid in every school no matter their background, deserves to learn the basics about food - where it comes from, how to cook it and how it affects their bodies. These life skills are as important as reading and writing, but they've been lost over the past few generations. We need to bring them back and bring up our kids to be streetwise about food. - Jamie Oliver
Jude is fortunate enough to attend a school where plenty of life skills are offered and encouraged and their entire curriculum has now moved over to project based learning, but this is often not the case in many main stream schools and I don’t have much confidence that this will ever change – in fact it just seems to be getting worse, because lesson gaps which would previously have been occupied by teaching life skills are very often replaced by technology focused lessons.. Which I do realise is an integral part of education today – but I simply cannot understand how basic life skills are treated with so little importance anymore.
Knowing the entire history of your country is never going to save your life – but knowing how to cook or grow your own food very well might.
It is for this reason that I think that the responsibility also falls into the lap of the parent. Our child’s entire scope of education should not simply be left up to the school. We need to step in as well – in whatever way we can. Most of us that are parents to relatively young children today are in the possession of at least one or two fundamental life skills and we should start imparting those on to our kids.
In the instance where you don’t have the knowledge to help your child expand theirs – there are still plenty of alternatives available to solve such problems. If it is a financial option, there are private lessons for things such a trade skills, cooking etc. There is also YouTube… just saying (this way, you can both learn. Lol)
Not only is the learning of the skill itself important in their lives, but the lesson of value and appreciation for things also comes into play, like when it comes to working with money for instance. Many kids are just handed money and gifts these days. They are not taught to work for it – they just “get”. This is why so many of them have no concept of the value of money. When children are forced to do something challenging for the reward of money – they gain a little more understanding of its value each and every time – as well as how far it does (or doesn’t go) when it comes to the spending of it.
Talking about “finance” - Instead of teaching the fundamentals of accounting or bookkeeping at school (which 90% of students hate) – why not combine a basic knowledge of this, with developing entrepreneurial skills. To my mind, this would serve them in far greater ways later on in life than simply knowing how to balance books. Unless you know how to run a business along with knowing how to setup debtors and creditors columns, then essentially all they will ever be able to do with that information is become a bookkeeper for someone else… which to my mind is a fairly limited niche of people who have a “dream of” doing this when reaching adulthood.
Money is a life skill – and as parents, grandparents, interested adults – it's up to us to make sure our children are prepared for the financial world they are going to face. - Sharon Lechter
Children need LIFE skills! They need to know how to cook food, grow food, understand nature, build things, problem solve, work with money and probably most important of all in my opinion is that they learn how to self-motivate. Having everything at your fingertips is not exactly encouraging perseverance as a trait in youngsters. From where I sit, so many of them simply lack the ability to push themselves from sometimes repeated failure, to a point of success… so many of them just throw in the towel in and move on to something else.
This truly is an endless topic because there are just SO many facets that have been affected by modern living – right down to the smallest things such as hand writing and spelling abilities. Kids just cannot write and/spell like they used to be able to and it is truly sad.
These smaller aspects are most definitely things that us as parents can help with… reading, writing and the additional practice of such things.
There are so MANY ways in which we can enrich our children’s lives with practical, usable skills and I think it is of the utmost importance that we do! One day when our kids are all grown up, not only will we be happy that we took the extra time to add more dimension to their lives, but I can guarantee you – they will thank you too – and they will be far better equipped for REAL life.
We have this myth that if you work hard, you can accomplish anything. It's not a very American thing to say, but I don't think that's true. It's true for a lot of people, but you need other things to succeed. You need luck, you need opportunity, and you need the life skills to recognize what an opportunity is. - David Lindsay-Abaire
❤❤❤
Until next time...
Much Love from Cape Town, South Africa xxx
Jaynielea
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Important points, Jaynie. The life skills our parents teach us remains with us forever.
I’m glad I learned cook and clean the house growing up as it certainly made adult life easier.
The only drawback was my mother ( in her own way) did not want me to know any street smarts. This kept me quite naive and I still find it hard to believe the underhanded methods others may use to get their way.
yeah being street smart is indeed very important.... but hey, it is never too late to start learning ;)
I couldn’t agree more. Sometimes I wish I had been the type of parent to home school my kids. I lacked the ability or patience but I totally understand why people do it. They have the opportunity to provide real guidance on real life skills, in addition to their academic studies. It shifts the entire mindset around schooling from being something you ship your kids off to do, to an integrated process that is an overall lifestyle - daily projects and learning and practical applications of the curriculum.
Great post @jaynie. Part of me wants to go back and do it all again in the hopes that I can get it right the second time around. But my kids are turning out well in spite of all my errors and missteps as a parent, so I try not to beat myself up too much! 😆
I have often considered home schooling, but sadly I just don't think it is that widely accepted nor equipped for here in SA.
And no, don't beat yourself up. I know exactly what you mean though. Parenting does not come with a handbook and can be so enormously challenging at times.
Well said. The handbook is something we have to write as we go, I think, because the parenting choices we make need to match our own values and views of the world. My handbook included telling my kids I loved them every day and saying I was sorry if I lost my cool — two things I didn’t receive from my parents. If I was to teach a parenting class, I’d start there. 😊
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oh yes yes YESSS to that! Especially the apology part! I ALWAYS make a point of sitting down with Jude to apologise for losing it, but to also explain they "why". We have a wonderful relationship in that respect.
Awesome post! I couldn't agree more ;)
..on every point you made... resteemed.
Also, limit smartphone use and go outside
closer to Nature/ Mother Earth.
1 Love
Agreed on the tech usage!
Thank you so such for such a wonderfully positive response and for the support - it is always greatly appreciated :)
Thank you! :)
And keep it coming ;)
Always doing my best lol :)
And that's all we can do, right ;)
The rest is up to the "Universe"
Be blessed, Beautiful
too true!!! :)
It is one of the hardest challenges as a parent. I am sure you do a great job (teach your kid algebra ;))
Being streetwise is imho, the single best thing you learn a kid.
Good luck guapa X
Oh I agree wholeheartedly! Thankfully for Jude, his mom is pretty savvy in that department lol
xxx
Great ideas and ones we have talked about many times.
You will be happy to know that my little one asked which courses are “trades” in highschool because she wanted to take em all. Proud!
I let her know to take the ones that would contribute to her desired college and university courses and all the trades she could. Be empowered and enabled! Know if it can be done, you can do it if you care to learn.
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That is fantastic! Long may it last!
I agree @jaynie. I am not a parent yet but, in my experience growing up- focusing on academic pursuit instead of learning life skills made my life away from home difficult. I am not saying about me going into a remote place and staying there alone. But, initially, I have to struggle on how I could cook, do my laundry, budget my money which is something that I wished I learned doing when I was growing up.
Though academic pursuit should not be abandoned, life skills should be taught in school as well and not be delegated to vocational schools or for only those who are interested in such a thing.
Exactly. People need to know how to actually FUNCTION in the world.
Academics has it's place, but in my opinion is secondary.
Well, it seems like everyone are conditioned to think that an academic job is so much better than a practical one- like being a regular worker. Which is something that should change.
too true!
it's true that the luck of a person also included but luck just won't come if you don't do hardwork. It won't come in your way if you didn't do anything. Well, we have different opinion about that anyway.
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Everything in life is a combination recipe. :) No, one thing will get you anywhere... Hard work is pivotal in any form of success :) so no, I don't think our opinions differ at all actually :)
Yes! I remember taking cooking and wood shop in school. And sewing! I want to actually learn knitting right now for less than wholesome reasons. :)
I tell my own boys that I want to "know things" and how to do things when they finally finish high school. Everyone needs life skills. After all, everyone at some point is going to need to do their own laundry.
HAHAHAHHAHA!!! I will NOT ask lol :D
bingo!
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We make jokes that our homeschooled kids are going to rule the world, not because they're exceptionally talented but because of all the life skills they get versus the kids around them. I prayed once (or a lot) about what I should focus on while teaching them and it was "teach them how to learn". I think that goes hand in hand with your post and the project based learning your son is doing. Projects are full of obstacles to overcome while still learning the educational material. We gotta train our kids up in all aspects.
Yes, yes yes!!!! And how to think!