Slow Schooling Chapter Eleven: Life Skills
On learning real life skills
Apr. 23, 2007
2:45 PM
Pressing On....
My 7yo son has put together and fastened a battery-powered cable car that runs from the dining room window to the upstairs railing. I imagine at 17 he will be doing the same thing, only from a 50 foot high tree house to the ground, for the purpose of bringing up his dog. Would that count on a high school transcript?
Most children are run through the public system as if he or she is college-bound to inevitably work a lifetime for a corporation. That system fails the children that are more gifted or eager to work with their hands in a trade, create artwork of some kind, or coax food from the ground. Because our society thrives when people fulfill their own innate talents and bents for the good of others, it doesn’t make the education a future CEO needs inherently worth more than the training for rug weaving. And making more money isn’t the best indicator of happiness, which is, most parents say, what they want more than anything else for their children: to be happy.
Historically, children of all ages were taught in some sort of trade or handwork in order to further the family economy, and as a result, further the economies of their communities. Children as young as four were taught to spin and knit (1), and as young as six were expected to have at least a working knowledge of the flora and fauna growing naturally around their homes (2). This training was not at the expense of receiving a decent education. Regardless of the current relevancy of the infamous “eighth grade examinations” (3, for example), it is clearly seen that even the tradesmen and farmers were not dimwits.
Regardless of what life work our children will undertake, they will still need to take care of the basics of survival: food, clothing, and shelter. In our day, this may be translated as: knowing how to procure and cook food, knowing how to wash and dry clothing, and knowing how to keep a home that is safe, clean, and healthy. The most logical way to teach children these skills is to ensure that they are needed, working members of the household, each with their own responsibilities and chores. A toddler may begin with how to make her bed in the morning; a teenager ought to know how to keep the entire house, including how to turn on and off the electricity, water, and gas. These are simply the basics--how to get by--not what someone would need to truly thrive.
There are many resources available if a parent needs help with regards to what chores might be appropriate for any particular age (see the Maxwell’s work, for example)(4), but the biggest challenge is not in coaxing children to work; it is in allowing them to make mistakes, make messes, and take four times longer than an adult to do the same task. Unfortunately, the more a parent pushes aside a child to “go play” while the important work is tended to, the more that child will rebel later when pleaded with to help around the house and yard. It is not loving to do everything for them; it is setting them up to be resentful or angry when others cannot or do not cater to their wants (which inevitably turn into needs), and sowing slothfulness into their hearts. Teach them to wash a dish today, and they won’t wait for someone else to do them tomorrow.
Another side benefit in working chores is that many of them, especially at the onset, require explanation, observation, and trial and error. This may sound like a burden to the parent who may rightly desire a little peace and quiet, but it plants by faith the fruit of a close, loving relationship as time is spent together talking and walking by the way. How else will your child learn to think your thoughts after you, or appreciate how and why you do things the way that you do? How might they honor your heritage if you never chat about what your own grandparents were like, or know the customs and manners of your family or faith? To expect a child that is often away from the parent to suddenly appreciate and embrace that parent’s values is unrealistic and unreasonable.
That’s not to say I’ve taught every child of mine to do every chore. As my children grew, they also took on the responsibilities to teach their siblings. I appreciate the opportunity to have them work (and bond) together, especially as it is most likely that they will outlive their father and I. We desire for them all to be close. What better way to encourage that than to put them to work to clean the van or the duck pen together?
Here is an example of chores that my children did when they were younger, as written on my first blog:
All my children are expected to be “up and ready” before breakfast. This means: dressed, face washed, teeth and hair brushed, pjs away and beds made. I wish this happened everyday, but we work on it as a goal (if you never have a target, how are you ever going to hit it?). In addition to their “up and ready” chores, these are some of the jobs my children regularly do around the house:
9yo
feeds and cares for the animals
launders girls sheets and remakes the beds
launders and replaces towels
launders the girls clothing
bakes all sorts of breads and desserts
vacuums and mops
cleans a bathroom
loads dishwasher
weeds
7yo
helps with animal care
cleans out the cat litter box
launders the boys clothing
sweeps and mops
empties all garbage cans
washes garbage cans
clears the table
launders boys sheets and remakes beds
weeds
cleans out the garage
5yo
feeds the cat
sweeps kitchen floor
empties the dishwasher
folds towels and puts them away
dusts
cleans windows
cleans out the van
straightens up our library
sets the table
3yo
sweeps the floor
T.P. runabout
puts silverware away
folds napkins and puts them away
dusts
straightens the mud room
puts away dirty towels and napkins
puts away clean diapers from the dryer
helps set the table
Also, they all have an assigned area to keep clean (in addition to their room). My 7yo is in charge of the hallway and upstairs bathrooms, my 5yo is in charge of the playroom and loft, and my 9yo is in charge of the downstairs. Separating their own “zones” was very helpful because it became OBVIOUS who was and who wasn’t doing their jobs!
The oldest three are at times “in charge” of their 3yo sister, and usually she will just tag along and “help” whomever with whatever job is going on. This is great on a number of fronts: both siblings bond, one learns to teach, the other gets to learn a new skill. This is my “ducks in a row” picture: I’m the Mama duck, and teach the eldest, who teaches the next one, who teaches the next one.......What this frees me up to do is oversee each one individually and give them each attention as they need and want it. I do not have to run around “doing everything”. This means I do not have to burn out and play the martyr, and that my children are not robbed of the opportunity to gain life skills, foster good relationships, and grow in responsibility. Yes, it would be “easier” to ship them all away from my home so that I could scrub a toilet in peace.......but sparkling toilets pale in comparison to time spent learning and growing together as a family.
The family has been hard pressed since the Industrial Revolution to work together as a family in the pursuit of economic gain and financial freedom. Once fathers left the home to find work, women and children were left on their own to keep the home and, in many instances, the land. The home slowly became a place where living became separated from production--that is, it became a place where things were consumed, not produced. It seems to me that a woman, between missing the companionship and vision of her husband, and the seemingly mundane stoking the home fires without gaining any sense of community purpose, would have been provoked to a discontent and stress that otherwise would have been abated with the family unit left whole.
Thus, once it became understandable, even fashionable, for a woman to leave the home in order to find outside employment with which to add to the family economy, there was nothing of purpose for children to do within the home setting. Sunday schools were implemented to rescue these wayward children, to provide for them a safe environment and an education that might equip them to be upstanding citizens and good workers for their own future families. It didn’t take long for the government to take this model and create the public school system we have today.
With homes empty now for three quarters of the day, is it any wonder that family relationships are strained? With every member about the business of doing individual work, there isn’t much other than love to bond the family. And when love becomes difficult--as it inevitably does between sinners--there isn’t anything else to keep the family together through the worst of times.
One of the blessings of slow schooling is the momentum that it can stimulate when a family gets a vision for developing a home business. With at least one parent at home, and a different view of education and preparation for life, the family can begin to contemplate and even execute means to bring income into the home. Our current day is ripe with opportunity for even the youngest and inexperienced--for education, for the means to produce, for a global market. Furthermore, the Industrial model is fading away before our very eyes as we are not on the cusp but rather at the base of the hockey stick curve of a technological revolution that will profoundly change how goods are produced and delivered. There is a great and as yet untapped wealth of favorable circumstances that can give a family the freedom to work together to create the lifestyle they want and enjoy.
Perhaps this sounds improbable, impossible even. Consider, however, the probable fact that you may not have seen a family practice in this way because you grew up within the last hundred years. If we were to expand our view a bit to the thousands upon thousands of years previous, you might see the very normal practice of closely bonded families living and working together, with businesses based out of their homes. It is not that this is a new and different idea; it is the original idea that has been distorted in the pursuit to create a more materialistic and consumer-based lifestyle. The home has become a place of consumption, not production, but it has not always been this way, and I would argue that the massive breakdown of families in our time is the cancer screaming in our society that this manner of separating work from our home is not the best way to live.
There are many ways to oil the gears in considering how a family might produce goods together. A very effective way is to consider what the innate talents and interests of the parents might be. Does Dad have an appreciation for woodworking, engraving, or working with textiles? Does Mom have an eye for design, a ready pen to write with, a green thumb? Many times a parent may remember the great pleasure they derived with certain hobbies as a youth, but feel that those things were put away along with other childish things. I’d like to encourage you to take those “childish things” out of the attic boxes!
Perhaps a father enjoyed martial arts as a young lad. Could he take a few years to get training and then begin to offer his own classes? Or it may be that a mother was quite skilled in sewing aprons and pillows in her middle school economics class. Could she take an internet webinar to learn how to market and sell them? In this way, a family could offer training in life skills or produce goods for use, but it gets even better: once these are firmly grasped, a family can take these models and use them to produce passive income.
Passive income is the income a family earns while they are sleeping. The father that is teaching martial arts might put together an ebook of the best practices to become a better martial artist--one that blows away the “Top three tips” someone might find on the internet search engine. The mother sewing aprons might put together a video series that would teach even the youngest novice to sew with skill. These products, once produced, have the potential to reach millions, and because they are products ONCE produced do not need any more work in order to continue to bring in income. In this way, the family not only takes advantage of the massive education available that others have put together, they add to the growing body of knowledge for the worldwide community.
Not sure of where to start? Your childhood talents and interests don’t peek your interest anymore? Then dig around your children’s talents and interests a bit--what excites them? If the only thing that is floating their boats right now is getting the next high score on a video game, then a media fast might break through the fog of hallucination to encourage more edifying and valuable pursuits (this is true for Dad and Mom, too!).
A valuable resource for us has been the Keepers of the Faith club (5). They have unfortunately closed, but their handbooks were helpful in choosing a wide variety of activities for our family to try. Some of the things that my husband and I have learned with our children (not having had any prior childhood experience) are: gardening, animal husbandry--including milking and butchering, baking bread and making butter, woodworking, basket weaving, handwork such as knitting and crochet, food preservation, website design and internet marketing, soap making and electrical work. If you can’t find a Keepers of the Faith handbook, you may be able to find an old Girl Scout or Boy Scout book in a used bookstore. Those little handbooks are a treasure trove of “What could we do next? What sounds interesting?”
Many people are concerned about the self-esteem and confidence of our young people. The way to produce bold and hopeful people is not to lie to them about the world being their oyster and how they can be or do “anything.” Rather, it is to give them time and space to think deeply, allow them a little boredom to cultivate an imagination, and encourage and expect them to work hard. We can also provide for them the opportunity to develop life skills and show them how, even as adults, there is no excuse not to keep learning something. Confidence arises not only from having a right understanding of self (“I’m not the most important person on the planet”), but from having the ability and willingness to serve their family, and then their community, with enthusiasm for having done a thing well, whatever that may be. Give them the chance and the freedom to do so.
Sunday, September 9, 2007 05:29
Keepers of the Faith Club
... What I love most about Keepers is that our children are learning real life skills, and these in turn develop their confidence. When they are turned loose to the world, they will have more important matters to consider than to spend time mentally spinning on how to work a washing machine. Teaching them these skills now buys them freedom from confusion and frustration later, and I enjoy using Keepers rewards and materials to that end.
If you’re looking for a simpler, more purposeful life outside of the rule of technology, perhaps you can glean from my experimentations in seeking a more present life. Learn more about the book (and how to get it) by clicking on its image.
This was refreshing. So much pressure to educate at home the exact way they do it at public schools. And so much pressure to push academics. I love this chapter. 🤍