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! 😆

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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.
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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

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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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.

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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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.

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.

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.

So much yes to this.  I'm so glad my mom made us do chores to earn our allowance as kids.  We did everything from cleaning, to taking care of pets, to laundry and of course cooking.  We whined about it, but as an adult I'm so glad to have those very basic skills.  This is one of the reasons why I love being an aunt, as well--I have time to hopefully impart some of these skills on my niece when she starts getting old enough to learn.  I can't wait to have her spend the night and help me cook or come out and pull weeds in the garden.  The parents have a big responsibility, but we can all lighten the load and share the particular talents we have with the next generation.  It really does take a village, though we seem to have gotten away from that these days.  I know Jude is going to be one very well-rounded young man!

What a wonderful  boy you are raising. The kid is a natural in front of the camera.
He must have had a couple of lessons with the knife, very impressive.

You are spot on with everything you mentioned in this wonderful article. 
Not too long ago, wood shop, metal shop, art classes, cooking classes, photography, and many more REAL LIFE skill classes were offered in public schools. 
They have gone by the wayside like they never served a purpose. 

As you point out, the list of life skills a youngster needs to learn is endless.
A pet peeve of mine is making sure kids realize that money doesn't grow on trees. I'm not talking about harping on how much everything costs, but I'm talking about children having chores around the house, or little side responsibilities that earn them a little $$$.



Kids that have been taught what it takes to earn money, have a lot more respect for it. 
Any kid with his own little stash, will spend his MONEY a little more wisely than if you just hand them your money.
I really don't care how much money you have, you are doing your children a disservice it you hand them everything they want. 

So many great points in this article, with self motivation being another.
This is such a big problem as kids tend to veg out so much these days. Tech devices of all kinds, everywhere. All too often these gadgets replace a babysitter, the only problem is that babysitters are usually used when the parents aren't home. These gadgets  keep the kids busy while parents are off doing their own thing, while under the same roof.
The lack of quality time parents spend with their children, on a daily basis, is sad.
Schools should be augmenting your child's development, not the other way around.
As a parent, you need to be at the helm.

Life skills from my experience came from within the home, tending the garden, household chores, cooking mainly happened at home, sewing and knitting on odd occasion when my Mom took control. Teaching my children from experience gleaned from my childhood was shared, my youngest son is an amazing cook today being in a kitchen with me helping.

I must concur that we did having cooking lessons at school in Std 6 (Now Grade 8), I was bored having done it at home for many a year, perhaps some gained information from those classrooms. Personally I would have preferred the woodwork classes offered to the boys back then, something I had to learn in later years on my own.

Health, hygiene, manners I believe are part of curriculum of late, these were things mainly taught at home and enforced in grade 1 at school. 

Times have changed, learning about basic survival in everyday life I think is overdue. Open/available land on school premises should be used to teach fundamentals in farming, live stock wherever able.

Enjoyed seeing this perspective through younger eyes, only to realize that my children's age group see this huge change from when they grew up to what their children are experiencing.

I agree in part... definitely some sort of life skills should be taught... but I wonder if it is more the domain of the parent rather than the school? 

Of course, some of the basic economic ideas could be incorporated into a school setting... I get the question about why physics and mathematics (especially the more abstract stuff) is at all relevant to anyone who wouldn't study those things in the future... I would argue that the the critical thinking and other rational skills that shoudl (and often isn't...) taught along side those topics are the critical things... but I have a huge rant about how Maths and Physics are taught at school anyway... long story short, they focus on wrong things... methods rather than first principles... rote learning over understanding. Blah...all the things that can be easily made into a metric... and then when it doesn't work, they dumb it down...

Maths... one critical area of Maths that SHOULD be taught and often isn't is statistical analysis... how to find signals in noise and how chance and signals can be differentiated and with what sort of confidence... this stuff is taught WAY too late to very few students... leading people to mistake polling for statistics and science! Plus, leading others to think that a single study or an outcome PROVES something....

I'm going to stop now... I'm going to crank out and get really off topic.... I'm not totally sure that I started on topic though...

Very true! It also challenges me to rethink my children's education - though they do have to work with me quite often, they need to learn the skills for life, not academics so much (or those can wait until they have the need to learn them...)

At one time much of these skills were taught by the parents, but with the last few generations having both parents working, they lost the time to teach and then subsequent generations grew up not knowing how to cook to even pass the knowledge along. So it falls to the schools, then they're having to jump through the hoops of legislation and often struggle to fit anything like that in as more than a quick, fun lesson on baking something, maybe a couple of times in primary school. I wonder if they've ever taught budgeting and finance.

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Hey @jaynie

Great post. I absolutely agree that not all the teaching and learning should happen at school, in fact, quite the opposite. Parents should always be the main source of life fundamentals with school re-enforcing good practice. I think that, too often, busy parents hand the onus on to the classroom teacher and, with up to 30 plus children in some cases, they just haven't got the time or resources to put into individuals.

Technology is also important to me and should be to everyone to a certain extent. Parents should stay ahead of the game when it comes to devices and apps just so they can have a modicum of control. BUT! Technology should only complement a classroom not dominate it. A couple of the international schools that I have worked at have toyed with going laptop or iPad only. I think this is a massive mistake. Social skills, concentration, interaction with peers and, not least, handwriting will all be impacted in a negative way. My suspicious mind believes that this trend is driven by the tech industry and is less about good education and more about making instant cash.

Enough ranting! Lol. Jude seems like a great kid. You're doing a fantastic job.

Gaz

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