Every parent wants to instill positive habits and foster the development of useful life skills in their children, but it’s often easier said than done. Kids aren’t always interested in learning things like the proper etiquette for using silverware at a formal dinner, changing a tire, or the right way to fold a fitted sheet, but these are skills that will surely prove useful later in life. If you’re looking for some creative ways to teach your kids important life skills, these tips will help you turn the bland and boring into fun and intriguing.
Learning to Swim
Swimming is an important life skill for children to develop at a young age, allowing them to participate in water-focused activities with a little less stress and dramatically reducing the risk of drowning. The best (and most enjoyable) way to teach kids to swim is by turning it into a game or a fun learning activity.
There are dozens of games you can play that your kids will have fun participating in while learning valuable swimming skills at the same time. And the best part is that they likely won’t even realize they’re actually learning new skills.
Checking Oil, Changing Tires, and More
When your kids are old enough to drive, there’s a good chance they may someday run into a problem on the road such as a flat tire or stalled engine. That’s why it’s important to start teaching kids how to perform basic maintenance tasks like checking the oil, changing headlights, fixing a flat, and jump-starting a battery long before they’ll actually be behind the wheel.
The best way to go about it? Start with age-appropriate projects and gradually work your way up to more complex tasks as your children get older. Elementary-age children can learn how to check the air pressure in a vehicle’s tires and even refill them with air, fix dents and window chips, and more, while kids in middle school can learn more complex tasks like changing a tire, flushing a radiator, and changing a headlight bulb.
Cooking and Baking
Gender stereotypes are so last century. While you’re still likely to encounter plenty of stereotypes in the world, every child should learn some basic cooking skills. Again, starting young is the key to engaging a child’s interest, and doing so means you won’t be teaching them dozens of tasks at once in a few years. In other words, have your preschooler help with measuring ingredients or cracking eggs (yes, you’ll probably have to remove a few eggshell flecks).
After they’ve mastered these basic tasks, move on to age-appropriate cooking skills such as frying eggs, making a toasted cheese sandwich, and other skills. Make food fun by creating faces and shapes using colorful fruits and vegetables to keep it entertaining, or pick up some fun utensils and gadgets such as dinosaur-shaped sandwich cutters that remove the crust and leave you with a dinosaur-shaped sandwich. Let them plan meals to help them learn about nutrition and how to create a balanced meal.
Money Management
Sound financial management skills will serve anyone well throughout life. But in many families, mom and dad rely on digital transactions and debit cards rather than cold, hard cash, which make money a bit of an abstract concept in kids’ minds. That’s why kids tend to think that money grows on trees (or that the bank just hands out endless cash to anyone who needs it – wouldn’t that be nice!).
Image compliments of Flikr.com
Teaching your kids how to manage money means making a trip to the bank and taking out some actual paper money, then engaging in some fun activities to help your children understand the concept of money as a finite resource. For instance, many parents turn to creative ways to manage and reward chores, assigning a dollar value to specific tasks.
You can also use of piggy banks that have separated containers for savings, spending money, donations, and investing, helping your kids learn how to allocate their funds to specific purposes. There are dozens of fun activities that you can do with kids of various ages to help them develop practical and smart money management skills over time.
These four examples are just a few of the many other life skills your kids must learn in order to lead a successful and prosperous life. With a little out-of-the-box thinking and creativity, you can turn any mundane life lesson into an inspiring and engaging activity that not only instills valuable knowledge but also fosters a stronger bond between parent and child through quality time.
Featured Image Credit: Pixabay
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