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Yeah at some point the kids will need to know this stuff. So the parents make excellent life trainers. Also don't want my boys growing up thinking its a female's job. Thats a huge no.
Yeah at some point the kids will need to know this stuff. So the parents make excellent life trainers. Also don't want my boys growing up thinking its a female's job. Thats a huge no.
This made remember the day that my older brother (teenager at the time) told my mom that he wouldn't be doing anymore dishes because that's "woman's" work.
It got real ugly after that...let's just say he did the dishes for a month.
This made remember the day that my older brother (teenager at the time) told my mom that he wouldn't be doing anymore dishes because that's "woman's" work.
It got real ugly after that...let's just say he did the dishes for a month.
Excellent. Thats outdated and old fashioned thinking.
My DD is 9 and my DS is 6. They both help me do alot around the house. When talking to other moms, I must seem like a slave driver because their kids do very little. Both kids help keep their rooms clean, set and clear the dinner table, help with laundry, bring in firewood, help vacuum out the cars, and other chores. They get $.25-$1 for certain chores like washing the walls and baseboards, cleaning up the yard, weeding the garden, etc. They have to save part of that money and the other half they can spend. When they have enough of the 'spending' money saved, they can decide on what to get. Sometimes we spend an hour looking at the prices and counting out what they have and making sure there is enough left for tax. Sales tax is not fair according to my 6 year old. Both kids are quickly learning to appreciate the value of a dollar!
Both kids LOVE to help me in the kitchen. We make alot of food from scratch, so there is alot of help measuring (good for 3rd grade math skills) and egg cracking going on. I had to get extra measuring cups and spoons so both kids would have their own sets and stop bickering about who gets to use what. We garden and they help from the very start in spring to the harvest in fall. We do alot of canning and dehydrating, so they are right there helping me, until they get bored. They are very proud of using food from our garden in their meals.
I have a 6 year old nephew that is angry when he isn't included in many of our chores on the weekends. He loves to help stack firewood, washing the car, put away groceries, clean the yard, etc. I know their willingness to help will decrease with age, but I am enjoying the helpfulness now.
I started doing home ec things by the time I was 6 or 7, such as laundry, dishes, and small baking and cooking (with help). I never had any interest in cooking whatsoever (apparently I was the only child with no interest in it), but my mother always tried to teach me and always let me know where the recipes were. Now I'm 20 and have no idea how to cook other than the basics! I'm starting to slowly pick up on it though, but I'm not a big fan of making things from scratch since it's so time-consuming.
I can do most things simply from watching my mother do it. However, to this day I cannot cook...at all. I burn things instead, and I have never in my life balanced a checkbook. I know what Ive got in there, and what I can afford, and keep it there.
That's what the automated call-in line from my bank is for...I call that line to see how much Ive got in there BEFORE writing a check.
It was my father who did all the cooking in our house and he prided himself on being an excellent chef. It was a relaxing hobby for him and a change of pace from an executive job. We cooked together as a family and something I enjoy doing with a partner to this day. We traded business advice in the same conversations as recipes. His mother taught me as a child how to bake bread, a handful of this and a handful of that. It was my maternal grandparents who taught me from a young age about budgeting and bank accounts. Not sure if this was just my family or if teaching things of this sort were more common years back.
My kids were incredibly precocious and fiercely independent, and of course I taught them early too. If you've ever seen a kindergartener comparison shopping at the grocery store while they insist their mother doesn't stray from holding the cart it can be really amusing.
My daughter has been loading the dishwasher since she was so short she needed a step stool to reach the sink. She started microwaving her own meals when we didn't eat together at about the same time but had her own microwave that was close to the ground.
She now can handle doing the laundry, folding it and putting it away as well.
She is working on the cooking from scratch part, she lacks patience and would rather microwave.
She sweeps, mops, feeds the cats just about anything. In fact my married girlfriends say she does more then their husbands.
It was my father who did all the cooking in our house and he prided himself on being an excellent chef. It was a relaxing hobby for him and a change of pace from an executive job. We cooked together as a family and something I enjoy doing with a partner to this day. We traded business advice in the same conversations as recipes. His mother taught me as a child how to bake bread, a handful of this and a handful of that. It was my maternal grandparents who taught me from a young age about budgeting and bank accounts. Not sure if this was just my family or if teaching things of this sort were more common years back.
My kids were incredibly precocious and fiercely independent, and of course I taught them early too. If you've ever seen a kindergartener comparison shopping at the grocery store while they insist their mother doesn't stray from holding the cart it can be really amusing.
When I was growing up I never had the option in school for home ec. My mother also never took the time to teach me the basics of cooking, laundry, finances, etc. Everything I learned was on my own, and I had to sink or swim when I first moved out.
When I was dating my husband, he lived on his own, but because he never learned how to do laundry, his mom would actually drive over once a week and do it for him. Once I caught wind of this I dragged him down to his laundry room, dumped the clothes in the washer, and showed him how.
DH and I learned to cook by watching the Food Network Channel. We sat down together and learned how to budget and take care of our finances. We taught ourselves pretty much what I tend to think a lot of people know when they're younger. And because of such simple things still sometimes seeming so hard ( I never did become a great cook, although I really wish I was. I can put a meal together but nothing fancy) I promised myself my kids would know all these things.
I have two boys and one on the way. My oldest, turning 7 next week, has a few chores that are his responsibility to the family. Every year I add one more. This year I decided it would be cooking. I want my kids to be able to take care of themselves when they move out of the house, and be self sufficient. So far he loves it. in the future he will also learn laundry, dishes (on his own) and as he gets older, finances and budgeting.
Does anyone else out there teach their children these things? At what age, and why or why not?
Fortunately, being a codger, they still had Home Economics when I was attending public school. These courses have been invaluable to me and I am a strong proponent that ALL schools should have some kind of "life skills" training available which would include cooking, and other home making skills as well as such esoteric things as how to balance a check book.
If I had children, which I do not (thank goodness), I would absolutely, positively take the time to teach them. Getting the cooperation you need, is often a challenge, from what I have heard from parents. The secret appears to be to start them young. The younger the better. My co-worker says that she started teaching her daughter to cook at 2 years old and now, at 15, she (the daughter) has no problem cooking dinner for her family on a regular basis.
20yrsinBranson
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I'm starting to slowly pick up on it though, but I'm not a big fan of making things from scratch since it's so time-consuming.
Way to go for your Dad!
