36 Life Skills to Teach Your Kids This Summer
Why should you teach life skills to your kids this summer? The simple answer is: because no one else will. If you want your kids to be self sufficient, it’s up to you to teach them.
Basic life skills like knowing how to preserve food, start a fire, make lunch, do household chores, and manage allowance money often get overlooked in favor of academic skills like reading, math, and history. And don’t get me wrong…academics are extremely important. But so are the skills your kids will need to be self-sufficient, capable adults.
Important Life Skills to Teach Kids
Here on our homestead, we’re constantly trying to balance teaching life skills alongside the academics we focus on in homeschool. There are many life skills to teach your kids, and this is only a short list!
1. Preserve Food
Yesterday, the boys and I spent the entire morning cutting up strawberries to make an enormous batch of strawberry jam. They helped stir why I explained what pectin is, why we boil the jam, and why we have to sterilize the jars. It took hours, but the lesson was an important one. This summer, every time I can, ferment, or dehydrate food from our garden, they’re going to be in the kitchen to help and watch. At 5 and 6, they’re old enough to start learning the ins and outs of food preservation.
Knowing how to preserve food is an important life skill that most adults don’t even know how to do. But stop and think about how this knowledge could help your child as an adult. Knowing the lost art of food preservation will help them stockpile a bountiful harvest from their garden or farmers market, and inexpensively put up food for lean times or emergencies. There’s also the feelings of joy, satisfaction, and accomplishment that comes from putting up food.
How to Teach Kids to Preserve Food
If you don’t currently know how to preserve food, then why not learn right alongside your children? There’s a wonderful lesson plan at Kids Gardening that covers the history of food preservation, its importance in human evolution, and several recipes that you can do with your kids.
Keep in mind that water and pressure canning are the most labor intensive forms of food preservation, and require the most knowledge and equipment. Other methods, such as dehydrating, freezing, salting, or fermenting are great food preservation techniques for beginners. Pick up a copy of Leda Meredith’s book, “Preserving Everything,” for detailed instructions and recipes for all these techniques (and more.)
2. Tend a Garden
Many children grow up with no idea where food actually comes from. But knowing how to grow a garden is one of the most important life skills to teach your kids. It will also be critical in the years to come, when food security is going to be serious global problem.
How to Teach Your Kids to Garden
If you don’t currently have a garden, start small. Grow some tomatoes or cucumbers in a container and enlist your child’s help in filling it with dirt, planting the seeds, and watering it daily. Or, purchase a Root Vue planter and let your child watch root vegetables grow indoors. You might also want to pick up a copy of Jenny Hendy’s book, “The Best-Ever Step-by-Step Kids First Gardening Book.”
If you do have a garden, ask your child to come help you pull weeds, and show them how to harvest fruits and vegetables properly so they don’t damage the plant. Talk about what each plant needs to grow and thrive. You can find great lesson plans and gardening project ideas to do with kids at Kids Gardening.
3. Think Positive
“Life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger or faster man. But sooner or later, the man who wins is the man who thinks he can.” – Vince Lombardi
“I’m never going to get this to work!” Julian screamed the other day, throwing his Legos down in anger. “Never say never,” I said, sitting down on the floor with him. “There’s always a solution if you look hard enough.”
I’ll be the first to admit that teaching my kids how to think positive has been challenging at times. At 5 and 6, their emotions still take full control when they encounter any type of obstacle that doesn’t have an immediate solution. However, I cringe when I think about how difficult their life will be if I don’t teach them how to think positive and persist through challenges. They’ll grow up letting every setback impact the course of their life, and they might never reach their full, glorious potential.
Challenges and failures are part of life. The people who are most successful are those who are humble enough to see failure as a gift, to learn from their mistakes, and to get back up and keep going when they fall. You can’t do any of this without the ability to think positive.
How to Teach Kids Positive Thinking
There are two essential keys to teaching a child positive thinking: repetition and leading by example.
It will take years of you saying the same thing: “think positive…let’s find a solution…there’s always a silver lining and positive lesson even in the hardest situations.” You’ll feel like a broken record at times. However, never forget that your child is listening to every word you say, and over time those words are going to shape their thought patterns and attitude. Positive thinking will become a habit, just like brushing their teeth and washing their hands.
You must also never forget that your child watches everything you do. If you want to teach them to think positive, then you must lead by example and do it yourself. Whenever you encounter a challenge or setback, don’t fly off the handle or act like the world is ending. Take a few deep breaths, and figure out a solution. See this challenge as an opportunity to do something different or learn something new. Talk to your child about what you’re thinking, and what you’re going to do. Every one of these conversations is a lesson.
It might take years, but over time your child will learn to think positive and persist through life’s obstacles.
4. Build a Fire
I don’t know how it is with girls. But one of the things that no one ever told me about raising boys is that they will be fascinated by fire. It doesn’t matter what kind of day they’re having…if I say “Let’s go outside and start a fire!” their moods will skyrocket and they’ll sprint outside.
The ability to start a fire and keep it going is a skill that literally changed the course of human evolution. So, it stands to reason that fire starting is one of the essential life skills to teach kids.
How to Teach Fire Starting and Fire Safety
Start this with this informative article at Run Wild My Child on how to teach fire starting with kids. If you have a backyard, enlist your child’s help gathering kindling and building a fire pit ring. If you don’t have a backyard, consider taking a family camping trip to a local state or county park so that you can all enjoy building a fire and making S’mores.
5. Basic First Aid
Does your child know where the first aid kit is in your house? Do they know how to treat a wound if someone got hurt and you weren’t around?
Many adults don’t know even basic first aid skills, like how to use pressure to stop bleeding or how to properly dress a wound. However, knowing basic first aid, as well as more advanced skills like CPR and stopping traumatic bleeding, might one day save someone’s life, including the life of your child. Every person should know basic first aid.
How to Teach Basic First Aid
If you don’t know these skills yourself, learn alongside your child! Sign up for a CPR course with American Red Cross. Or, watch some of Skinny Medic’s trauma and medical tutorials on YouTube. I’ve learned most of my first aid and trauma skills from Skinny Medic, a practicing EMT, and even taken one of his in-person classes. He’s an excellent instructor.
You can also just pull out the first aid kit and show your child what’s in there. Talk about when a band-aid should be used and when it’s better to use gauze and medical tape. Show your child the antibiotic cream and explain how it works to kill harmful bacteria and germs. Teach them how to take their own temperature and read the thermometer.
6. Manage Money
Knowing how to manage money can make or break your child’s life as an adult. We’ve all heard stories of highly successful professionals who are drowning in debt, or people who are struggling financially because they don’t know how to save money and stop spending.
Financial literacy is one of those skills that your child will use his entire life. And, it’s never to early to start teaching kids how to manage their money.
How to Teach Kids About Money
One easy way to begin is to talk to your kids about what you do with your own money. Why do you use coupons or shop sales? How much is the electric bill each month? Why are you saving up for a treasured item instead of just putting it on a credit card? Why do you set aside money each month for your favorite charity? Why are you starting that side business when you already have a job?
All of these conversations teach your child about money: how to save it, how to spend it, and how to make it grow.
If your kids get allowance or earn money for doing special jobs or chores, talk to them about how saving their money each week can lead to bigger rewards, like a really nice toy later on instead of a cheap toy right now. Talk to them about ways they can start earning more money through entrepreneurship.
7. Cook a Meal
Do your kids know how to make a sandwich? Do they know how to boil pasta, or make a simple salad?
Many kids don’t have basic cooking skills because it’s so much faster for parents do the work themselves. However, teaching your kids to cook will boost their self-confidence, and make them more willing to try new foods. It also helps them appreciate just how much work goes into preparing food for a family which, in turn, can help foster gratitude.
How to Teach Kids to Cook
Letting your kids help in the kitchen requires patience. Yes, they’re going to make a bigger mess than you do, and the meal is going to take twice as long (at least) to prepare. I recommend starting cooking lessons on a weekend, long before your tribe gets hangry.
Start with something really easy that they eat all the time. For example, the first meal our boys learned to make for themselves was a PB & J sandwich. Then, we moved on to letting them make their own snack plate with crackers and sliced fruit. Take it slow and keep it as stress-free as possible.
If your kids aren’t ready to wield a knife, purchase a set of kid-safe knives. We use these with our boys and they’re wonderful. If you have older kids, purchase a pair of kid sized cut resistant gloves for added safety (and peace of mind.)
8. Find and Purify Water
If your child was ever lost in the woods, would he or she know how to find drinking water (hint: head towards a valley or low point).
Knowing how to find water is one of the essential life skills to teach kids because the reality is: kids get lost in the woods. And although we can go up to three weeks without food, we can only go three days (if that) without water.
How to Teach Water Safety
To teach your kids how to find water, start with these informative articles at Art of Manliness and Secret of Survival. You might also want to pick up a copy of John “Lofty” Wiseman’s book, “SAS Survival Handbook.” We have a copy of this book and it’s incredibly thorough. Wiseman goes over many ways to find water in the wild, even if you’re in the desert.
Practice finding water out in nature. Or, you can even practice some skills, like collecting dew or digging a seep, in your own backyard.
Once your child knows how to find water, they also need to know how to purify it. There are several ways to purify water. One of the most basic is with boiling (you can pair this with the fire starting lesson!)
You can also purchase some portable water filtration devices and show your child how to use them. For example, each of our boys carries a Lifestraw in their backpack, and they know how to use it. In addition, we also have several Sawyer Minifilters and love them for their portability and ease-of-use.
9. Forage for Wild Edibles
We’re constantly on the look out for wild edibles and medicinal plants on our homestead. We forage for morels, shepherd’s purse, blackberries, and chickweed. One of the boys favorite snacks to eat in the pasture is wood sorrel.
Teaching your kids how to safely forage for wild edibles opens up the natural world. Instead of seeing a “green wall” of weeds and nameless plants, they learn to identify unique species and learn the benefits each has to offer.
How to Teach Your Kids to Forage
One of the best ways to learn the art of foraging is to purchase a quality guidebook and go on nature walks with your child. You can find edible plants even if you live in the city.
We use the books in the Regional Foraging Series. These guidebooks break up the United States into seven distinct foraging zones, so choose your region and head outside. You can also pick up Adele Nozedar’s “Foraging with Kids” for child-friendly projects for 50 commonly-found wild edibles.
You can also teach them to identify narrow and broadleaf plantain, which grow in most parts of the United States. This humble little plant has a myriad of medicinal uses. The one we use it for most on our homestead is for bee and wasp stings. Show your children how to identify plantain, and how to chew it up and make a quick spit poultice to treat a sting or bite.
27 More Life Skills to Teach Kids
Need more ideas for some great life skills to teach your kids this summer? Teach your kids how to:
- Bake bread or cookies
- Take care of an animal or pet (fish, hamster, rabbit, chicken, dog, cat)
- Build a tree house or fort
- Set up a tent
- Sew or embroider
- . Dial 911 in an emergency
- Read a map and use a compass
- Wrap a present
- Buy groceries and pay the cashier
- Change a tire
- Unclog a toilet
- Listen actively
- Use a fire extinguisher
- Shake hands (firmly!)
- Be still and meditate (we use Kira Willey’s “Breathe Like a Bear” with our boys)
- Tell a good joke
- React if the house is on fire
- Fix something around the house: a leaky faucet, a loose windowpane, a squeaky door
- Use old-fashioned signs to predict the weather (pick up Tristan Gooley’s excellent guide, “The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs” to learn how)
- Create a food budget and stick to it at the store
- Set the table
- Get the family to safety if a tornado is coming (or earthquake or whatever weather event or natural disaster your area commonly experiences)
- Start a money-making business
- Use a can opener
- Practice gun safety and shoot a gun
- Build a survival shelter in the wild
- Tie several different knots, and know what each knot is best used for
Last Word
There are so many life skills to teach kids that it’s impossible to cover them all. Other essential life skills like courtesy and manners, knowing how to write a thank-you note, knowing how to clean a bathroom and do laundry, are just as important. As parents, it’s up to us to teach our kids how to be strong and self-sufficient. No one else will do it for us.
There are so many benefits to teaching your kids life skills. You get to spend quality time with your children, and watch their confidence grow as they master each new skill. And, you get to experience the satisfaction and joy knowing that you’re helping your child grow into a strong, capable, self-sufficient adult.
I’d love to hear back from you. What life skills would you add to this list?
