How To Be Intentional About Life Skills ~ Not Back to School Blog Hop

As you begin to think about being intentional about teaching life skills to your children, be prayerful. Ask God to direct your thoughts, to guide your ways. This is the best way to begin anything, really, so why would teaching life skills be any different. Keep in mind your purpose for teaching these life skills. Yesterday, I shared with you why we want to be intentional about teaching life skills to our girls.

Today, let’s chat a bit about what intentionality might look like.

Action words come to mind for me first:

• look
• listen
• see
• hear
• read
• talk
• work
• walk
• act
• practice
• and we could go on.

A friend I know and greatly respect made this statement about being intentional and teaching life skills:

Let them help. Let them grow. Let them learn. If it is important enough for us to do, it is important enough for the children to do alongside us. – Brenna Rhodes

That really struck me. It isn’t always easy to have a child working alongside you. As an example, we just finished putting the doors and knobs back onto our repainted kitchen. Having Miss J help me was time consuming and slowing. It was slowing to teach her how to set the doors against the hinges, to screw them in, make sure they are tight, keep from dinging the new paint job, etc. Yet, she now knows how to add hinges to things like doors that might need it. She can look at how a door should go against a cabinet and tell if it is aligned right. She can tighten a screw without stripping it out. And then we did the knobs and pulls. The first few, I’ll be honest – I was worried she was going to scratch the finish because of how the pulls sit. She didn’t, though. Not one. She listened and was so very careful that I felt somewhat foolish that I had worried.

This is just one example of letting them come alongside me in my work, to do what I am doing and learn to do it on their own. Another example is going to be evident on the blog during our next round of Blogging Through The Alphabet. I have asked the older two girls to write the posts for me. They are going to split up the letters and choose favorite books to write about for older students, including designing an activity to go along with that book. I enjoy writing on the blog and so I figured, I’ve been doing this for a few years now, it is time to get them involved. Miss E and Miss L have each done a little bit once in a while but this will involve so much more – deadlines, writing for an audience that isn’t mom or sisters or dad, fitting the writing to a purpose and idea, creating a graphic to go along with it, thinking about activities that other students would enjoy and designing around that, learning how to format for the blog, and so much more. But this is a life skill in the digital age, isn’t it? Not necessarily the blog format but all the other stuff? Those are life skills, I am doing the Blogging Through The Alphabet anyway, so why not use the opportunity to teach them these life skills.

I hope you are seeing that I am trying to include the girls in what I do every day. Yes, learning how to care for a house or mow the lawn or do the laundry are important skills. But life skills are so much more than that.

Did they have a great class with someone? Have them write a thank you note.

Did they enjoy the sermon? Stop and talk with the preacher about what they really liked about it, the point that they got from it.

Did they can pickles? Allow them to share the jars with others. Miss J took all but one jar of the first batch of pickles we did and gave them away. She wanted to share her bounty with others. We may be buying pickles this year but that’s okay. Her skill of giving, showing love, talking to others (She had to give each person the jar and tell them what they were, where they came from, and why she was giving them pickles.), planning (She wrapped each one with a ribbon and had to remember to take them.), and so much more.

Do they want to learn a skill you don’t know? Allow them to ask around in safe community places (church would be where we begin) to see if there is someone who could teach them. This is how Miss L ended up in debate last year. And she learned SOOOOO much from that debate class. Life skills galore!

I am starting to get off track here but do you see how something that happens in every day life can be the gateway to learning a whole host of life skills? You just have to be looking for it and paying attention to the actions that you are doing anyway. Something simple can really be used to great advantage when you begin thinking about life skills.

You have probably heard the saying that goes something like this:

If you don’t teach them to serve God, the world will teach them not to.

This is great motivation for teaching life skills and all that comes with them. Tomorrow, let’s chat about what life skills are. Specifically, what life skills look like. I have given you a sneak peek here, I guess, though my rambling. Tomorrow – specifics!

Blessings,
Lori, At Home.

There are many more tidbits to be found on the link up for the Not Back To School Blog Hop. Be sure to visit the post on the Homeschool Review Crew to read other articles and get loads of information to encourage you on your homeschool journey.

CREW @ Homeschool Review Crew – 2019 Annual Not Back to School Homeschool Blog Hop

Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses – ABC of Homeschooling

Dawn @ Schoolin’ Swag – Adding Fun to Your Homeschool Day

Erin @ For Him and My Family – Large Family Homeschooling

Lori @ At Home Where Life Happens – Learning Life Skills

Monique @ Mountain of Grace Homeschooling – Homeschooling the High School Years

Monique D. @ Early Learning Mom – Homeschooling With Autism

Yvie @ Homeschool On the Range – 5 Days of Upper Grades Homeschooling

Abby @ Making Room 4 One More – Time Management for Homeschool Moms

Amanda @ Hopkins Homeschool – 5 Days of Homeschool Questions

Amy @ the WRITE Balance – Year-Round Schooling

Annette @ A Net in Time – Homeschooling.

Betty @ Lets Get Real – Homeschooling High School

Cassandra @ My Blessed Mess – Eclectic Homeschooling

Kimberley @ Vintage Blue Suitcase – Roadschooling with a Teenager

Tagged: 2019 Not Back to School Blog Hop, education, life skills, parenting