Posted on 04/03/2018 8:28:10 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Recently a UK paper published a survey of the top 30 “basic life skills” fathers are no longer teaching their children. The list, topped off with “building a tree house” and “making a catapult,” reads more like a lament on the invasiveness of modern technology than a realistic parenting critique. I know it’s British, but “playing Pooh sticks” isn’t exactly what I’d dub a “basic life skill” in the twenty-first century.
There is, however, a point to be made about what parents aren’t teaching their children any longer. In the era of two-working-parent families with single motherhood on the rise, it isn’t any surprise that parents have learned to rely heavily on educational outlets to pass on the kind of skills children used to learn at home. Even stay-at-home mothers like me who maintain a certain level of flex-time work wind up watching their children learn their letters and numbers from Sesame Street.
Yet, even outsourced education is severely lacking when it comes to critical life skills. Younger children are being forced to consume academics at tender ages from educators who struggle to impart basic social skills. Parents of older children often complain that high school students learn none of the basic life skills they once attained in public school: sewing, financial management, basic home and auto repair. College graduates who used to be able to establish successful careers with broad-based liberal arts degrees now struggle to find work. Trade school students have a better chance of becoming independent business owners than their more elite peers.
That’s not to say that every child needs to become a master plumber, but if I were to make a list of the skills parents no longer pass down to their children I certainly wouldn’t waste my time on Pooh sticks. In fact, here are 10 “real life skills” my husband and I want to pass down to our sons.
Time Management What really matters? And why? So many kids are shuffled around to different activities that they’re on ADHD medication. I bet none of them understand the value their parents place on these things, because their parents don’t either. I want our kids to value the time they’ve been given and know how to use it wisely.
Basic Outdoor Skills An avid camper, my husband looks forward to pitching tents, hiking, and teaching our sons about nature. I’m big on the fun of compasses, pocket knives, and how to read physical maps without the assistance of a computerized voice.
How to Build, Not Just Use a Computer Yes, times have changed since my husband tinkered in the '90s, but the concept is still the same: If you want to appreciate the technology, you need to understand how it works. Our kids won’t just be mesmerized by Minecraft or YouTube.
By the way, those are solid skills to give to your kids, good job.
One of the way the Leftists are attacking the 2nd Amendment is to demonize it among the young and impressionable, beginning in Kindergarten and all the way up through college and beyond.
I am certain they are thinking they can outlast conservatives on gun ownership by waiting for us all to die...or killing us off.
Only if someone touches my bike.
But seriously folks.
Learn how to take general care of yourself.
How to do laundry,cook and other daily chores.
This especially applies to millennials.
Flush the toilet when you use a public restroom.
Learn how to make change without a calculator.
And learn cursive.
A few things every modern human being should be able to manage:
1.) Build a nuclear reactor from scratch.
2.) Travel back in time on a study tour of the Roman Empire.
3.) Manufacture diamonds by squeezing coal.
4.) Lead a burro into the Rocky Mountains, mine gold, smelt it, and turn your diamond into a diamond ring.
5.) Launch a rocket to the moon and build a space station there.
6.) Wrestle a Great White Shark and force it to become a vegetarian.
7.) Jog up Mount Everest, build an igloo, and have a picnic there.
8.) Swim from San Francisco to Singapore.
9.) Read up on mathematics and teach at Cal Tech.
10.) Find a Democrat and get him/her to make sense.
It's well underway. Several years ago while undergoing questioning for jury service on a murder trial, I was shocked at how many of the prospective jurors (maybe 40-50%) didn't own a gun, had never held or shot a gun or were horrified at the thought of firearms. I grew up in Texas, my father taught me to shoot at 8 years old and summer camp had firearms training when I was 10. I don't think I knew a family that didn't own a firearm. It was "universal". Of course, that was in Texas 60+ years ago. :o)
My family did not have guns when I was growing up, I attribute it to simply a lack of money and general interest...raising six kids on military pay.
I would have loved even a BB gun.
Couldn’t afford any of it.
Sorry you missed a nice part of childhood. I had a Benjamim pump air BB rifle that could put nice holes in tin cans, break bottles and make holes in the garage door, which almost disintegrated from the shots I pumped into it. The bb gun was legal in town but I took the .22 to the lake. Today, I suspect people would freak to see a kid riding a bike with a .22 across the handlebars but it was common back then.
I watched a clip with Denzel Washington talking about what to do ...
He said “When you go to bed at night, kick your slippers under the bed so that when you get up in the morning you have to be on your knees to retrieve them, while you are there, Give Thanks to your Creator for all the blessings that you have and those that you will receive.
Works for me
TT
Conkers is an old English kids game using the hard seeds from horse chestnut trees.
A good competitive kids game that can be played at no cost - no fancy clothes or equipment needed...:^)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conkers
It has probably disappeared now due to computer games.
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