Giving your children a broad education

[iwanttobeonleave]

What would you consider for providing children with a broad education?

What's important to you that you think children would benefit from learning or understanding

I'm thinking;

-read every day and as widely as possible
-Make sure they understand the environment and environmental issues
-visit plenty of museums and galleries
-music lessons and give them a broader understanding of music appreciation
-help them foster a love of playing sports and being physically fit and active

• help them learn languages

-travel where possible to see and appreciate the world -learn about nature, plant species, insects, animals etc -foster a love of animals -being able to cook and understand food

What am I missing?

Sorry @Miriam101 the point I should of made is surround them with adults who are willing to explain things to them, encourage them and teach them things particularly in the areas you can't.

Money management is incredibly important - thanks for that tip @RedWingBoots, I'll take a look for my teen.

I completely agree that all the education in the world won't matter if there isn't role-modelling at home. And a big part of children's (especially boy-children) eduction should be doing stuff that makes them feel competent - so cooking, cleaning, knowing how to fix a leaky tap, knowing how to balance the books, knowing how to phone someone to query a bill or whatever.

I think for parents of differently abled children, threads like this are super-depressing if I'm being honest, but competence skills like the above can be easily adapted to any level of development. Your DC might not ever be able to make a three course meal for eight people (my DS certainly won't be able to do that) but he can make himself some toast and pasta.

And while he's not thriving at school, DH and I are both living breathing examples of life-long education and we talk about what we're learning all the time, in the hope that he'll go back to his education at some point to pick up some further qualifications or whatever.

@Peanutmnm

I do understand where you're going with it OP. I just rember the panic of trying to figure out how I could fit in the musical education with the sports education with the cultural education for my kids. It just adds so much pressure. You can't teach about good relationships without modelling them, so if your DH is a bit shit, that lesson will never go where you want it. If you and your DH have an interest and love of culture/art/music/sport, they will absorb that. If you cook from scratch, that's where they will learn that NOT from giving them ready/easy meals and then teaching them how as a lesson.

I heard a great podcast a while ago about how you just can't be good at a bit of everything. Pick one thing and do that to a high level.

The 'how to live' won't come from structured lessons. It will come from your family reality and culture.

Well said

That the most important thing to do with your lucky birth and incredibly privileged upbringing is to give back to your community and society, especially to those who were not as lucky and privileged as you.

How will you teach them about environmental issues while doing lots of travelling?

One of the best things to teach them is not to be afraid of making mistakes and that you learn from them.

The other thing is talking with them.

@Mousetown

How will you teach them about environmental issues while doing lots of travelling?

Good point!!! We're reading "the boy who cycled the world" at the moment so maybe we'll follow that....

@Miriam101

That;'s a great list but the thing that I feel in retrospect was totally absent from my education (both from school and my parents) was how to manage my money. Credit cards. Debt. Personal finance should be on the national curriculum! (Maybe it is by now-I'm ancient so no idea)

I completely agree. Thanks for the reminder.

Lots of brilliant ideas here. Mine also benefitted from Brownies and Cubs/Scouts. Taught them about working as part of a team, planning and empathy. Being responsible. Maybe looking after a pet. Mine gained a lot from drama groups. It gave them confidence and a safe space to discuss things and put themselves in the shoes of another character.

But, is impossible to cover everything. Just be the best parent you can, be as supportive as you can, talk to them, listen to them and enjoy their company. Encourage a good work ethic and open their minds to opportunities. They will discover the things they enjoy and want to continue with as they get older. It is all about being happy in their own skins, being able to fit in and becoming decent human beings. Education is not all about academic achievement, as you say.

@RedWingBoots

Sorry *@Miriam101* the point I should of made is surround them with adults who are willing to explain things to them, encourage them and teach them things particularly in the areas you can't.

Yes - this 100%

Thank you

Inclusion of the arts!! It's how we enjoy and make sense of the world.

My list is a bit more pessimistic for the future and about society in general!

• self defence - especially for girls (how to trust your instincts and run away)
• how to cope with conflict generally (how to argue your case without resorting to insults if the other person has a different viewpoint)
• what a healthy sex life is and isn't (porn, expectations around choking, consent)
• what impacts climate change will have on extreme events in our country (droughts, heatwaves, floods, winds) and how to prepare for and stay safe during those events
• empathy - especially for those more vulnerable than yourself (children)

I'd teach them to engage politically. As a starting point, to vote at every opportunity, but beyond that, how politics works and why it is important to engage.

I'd also teach them to engage in wider society - the easiest way to do that is to demonstrate it by doing it yourself. So do some volunteer work, be a school governor, sit on your parish council etc.

Realistically you have to follow their interests, even if that isn't quite the balanced outcome you were looking for. I've got one DC who loves understanding how the human world works - so politics, law, crime etc, but has very little interest in fiction. My other loves science, coding and building stuff, but is far less interested in how people relate to each other and society.

Teach them how to challenge. Constructively, but challenge. Don't just accept everything. From facts, to norms, to why to how. Enquiry.

While I agree with this in principle, in practice sometimes it pays to accept the facts you have been told, and learn them off by heart.

How to actually remember things and learn them off by heart seems to have become a skill that educators no longer instil in pupils. From spelling, to French verbs, to calculating the volume of a cylinder and goodness knows what else, all these can be committed to memory. My DH teaches an instrument, and he says that it is amazing just how few of his pupils can actually remember scales or chords from one week to the next, even after going over them again and again in lessons. They just don't seem capable of learning them off by heart, and then recalling the information when needed.

Practice makes perfect.

Understanding consent
CPR and/or what to do in an emergency