Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/customer/www/preparamom.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins/divi-overlays/divi-overlays.php on line 3008
Last week, I told you about my business peer who had sent her daughter off to college. Within a few weeks, she’d heard from her daughter who had thanked her for teaching her life skills like how to cook, clean, and do laundry.
My kids aren’t that old yet, but I know if I receive that call one day, I’ll be beaming! As moms, isn’t that what we all hope for – well prepared kids who “get it”? We all want our kids to learn how to be well prepared adults and to really understand why we chose to teach them those particular things.
This conversation sparked an idea for a series of blog posts on the top life skills kids are needing to learn now more than ever. We kicked off the series last week with personal finance management. This week, for part two, we’ll be chatting about cooking and cleaning.
HOW TO COOK
Many people are astonished by the lack of cooking skills among today’s young generation. While this is the era of ready-made meals and fast food, you shouldn’t consider the ability to cook as just a survival skill. The enjoyment of knowing how to cook is priceless. When done properly, home-cooked food has a beneficial effect on your health and the health of your wallet.
Even if it’s just macaroni and cheese, the ability to cook a meal and eat it is a necessary life skill—it’ll save them lots of money when their favorite takeout restaurant is closed for a holiday or it can be a feather in their cap when they are able to host a party and cook for a group of co-workers for the evening.
Starting the process of getting your kids comfortable in the kitchen can begin at an early age, too. It’s easy and fun to teach very small kids about baking. There are even creative ways to mix in simple math activities while measuring out ingredients. As they get older and have more attention and understanding of kitchen safety, you can move on to teaching them more difficult cooking techniques like sauteing, roasting, and grilling.
Knowing how to cook their own meals will save our kids money, calories, time, and could even impress their future partner down the line.
HOW TO CLEAN
From making our beds to laundry basics, our kids all need to learn basic housekeeping skills. For our kids, keeping a tidy house is a life skill that ensures the health of their own future family, keeps them organized and able to find what they need, and ultimately saves them money so they can keep living the ‘good life’.
It’s also proven that organization in the home help kids think more clearly in school. Organizing a home is more than just straightening up. It involves actual cleaning, organizing, and developing systems and routines to remain clean and organized.
You can begin this process by getting kids involved in your household chore systems. We do a lot with our kids around involving them in chores. They learn life skills and earn money in the process. It’s a win-win!
How to do Laundry
We’ve written quite a bit about training your kids to do their own laundry as well as easy laundry hacks, so I’m sure you can tell that this life skill was a big one for us. Getting my kids to do their own laundry has been a huge time saver for us!
We recommend introducing laundry to your kids in phases and you can find the entire process, here. Of course, it can be much quicker (and less frustrating) to simply do it yourself. But, that phone call from your kids at college thanking you for teaching them to do this will be so, so worth it!
It’s clear that our kids need life skills now more than ever. As their parents, it is our job to teach them. Teaching kids how to cook and clean and handle their laundry can be some of the most basic but necessary skills. Additionally, you can start with these skills when they’re quite young and make them fun! Come back next week for part three where we’ll be chatting about relationship skills.
In the meantime, you can grab our completely FREE Family Chore and Money System Action Guide, here. You can also hop over to Facebook and watch me walk through how to use it, here. If you’d like even more support, let’s chat about 1:1 coaching and I’ll help you set up a systems and routines that will work for your unique family.⠀
Our kids are learning and getting skilled at so much in school these days. I’m surprised sometimes at what they learn at their age!
But there are three areas of life I’m sure we can all agree we wish we had learned in school—cleaning, cooking, and budgeting.
These are the three areas you must teach your children as soon as possible.
If your kids take off to college with these skill sets, they’ll be off to a great start as responsible adults!
Cleaning
This is one that you need to instill in your children early on. Make them responsible for small tasks like cleaning up the sink after they brush their teeth and then move on to more complex matters like making their bed.
By the time they go off to college, they should know how to do their own laundry, instead of bringing it back home for you to wash, and to take care of basic household cleanups such as stains. The college stereotype of students living in a pig-sty should not apply to your kids.
Cooking
This skill is one that so many kids don’t master early on, leading to some major problems later.
First, your child needs to be taught how to cook healthy foods. When they go off to college, they’re going to want to lean towards quick, unhealthy junk foods that can ruin their health for years to come. (Anyone remember the “Freshman Fifteen”?)
But it also leads into the next area of budgeting as well. If your child learns now to cook his or her own food, then he won’t have to waste money eating expensive (and unhealthy) fast food.
Budgeting
I wish that I had learned how to manage money at a younger age. If I had, then maybe, just maybe, I would have made better decisions and not managed to rack up over $120K in consumer debt! (A word to the wise…don’t charge your entire wedding on credit cards!)
Thankfully, with A LOT of hard work and sacrifices, we were able to dig ourselves out of our mess. After that, I swore to myself that we’d never put ourselves into that predicament ever again and will make sure our kids don’t either. That’s why we help teach our kids early on about money management and how to delay gratification by saving up to buy the things you want instead of buying on credit.
Three Big Areas of Life That All Kids Can Benefit from Learning
Budgeting is just one of those life skills that every parent should instill in their children. And, of course, if they can cook and clean for themselves, it’s one less thing we have to worry about for them. If you can instill the importance of those skills at an early age, you can be sure that they will be much more successful as adults.
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/customer/www/preparamom.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins/divi-overlays/divi-overlays.php on line 3008
Struggle with staying on top of your bills and budgeting?
Do you stress out and dread when the 1st of the month rolls around?
Tired of living paycheck to paycheck?
Have constant arguments with your spouse around the family finances?
Have no clue on how to even get in control of your financial life?
Download this FREE Monthly Budgeting Action Plan, which includes Worksheets with step by step instructions on guiding you exactly on what you need to do to set up your own family budgeting plan that works for you and your family.
Struggle with staying on top of your bills and budgeting?
Do you stress out and dread when the 1st of the month rolls around?
Tired of living paycheck to paycheck?
Have constant arguments with your spouse around the family finances?
Have no clue on how to even get in control of your financial life?
Download this FREE Monthly Budgeting Action Plan, which includes Worksheets with step by step instructions on guiding you exactly on what you need to do to set up your own family budgeting plan that works for you and your family.
Do you struggle with getting your kids to clean up their room?
Are you ready for your kids to be more responsible?
Would you like your kids to be able to manage their time better?
Ready for a simple way to teach your kids good money management habits?
Download this FREE Family Chore and Money System Action Guide. It includes worksheets with step by step instructions on guiding you exactly what you need to do to set up your own chore, schedule and money management plans.
