Mumsnet users tell IKEA which life skills they'd like to teach their children

[JustineBMumsnet]

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Summer is often a time parents spend more time with their children and it can be a great opportunity to teach life skills: whether that’s cooking, reading, drawing, gardening, or maybe even playing a sport. But, with parents spending more time with their children than ever and home education due to lockdown, many have taken to teaching their children life skills as well as their academic learning. IKEA would like to hear about the life skills you’ve taught - or would like to teach - your children.

Here’s what Marie Tenglund, Interior Design Leader at IKEA has to say: “The ‘Wonderful everyday’ has never been more in focus than it is in our homes today. With so many of us having to support our children with school education at home, try also using this time to broaden the spectrum of learning.

At IKEA we believe teaching children life skills is really important. Sustainable living tops the list for us, so with summer arriving early – try growing produce, outside or inside whilst having fun, experimenting and learning. Harvest your crop together, use it to cook together and finally teach them how to sustainably get rid of waste as you complete the full circle.

Changing your lightbulbs to energy efficient ones, encourage the use or re-usable water bottles, labelling your leftovers in see-through containers for less waste are all simple life skills to share with your children.

Often it’s the smaller things that are easy to do but will have a large impact if we all do it together.”

Would you like to ensure your children have an impressive repertoire of meals they can cook? Perhaps you’d like them to have a healthy understanding of how to budget? Maybe you’re keen for them to learn how to make the perfect cup of tea for very non-selfish reasons? How does your children’s age affect the life skills you’d like to teach them?

Whatever life skills you’ve taught or would like to teach your children, share with IKEA in the thread below and you’ll be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £200 IKEA voucher.

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw!

MNHQ

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My twins teach me life skills! From mending the hoover and the tumble drier to fixing the WiFi. I can just about help the, out with their vegetable patch with the help of my dad though

Basic skills to look after their home, their finances, their car, themselves and other people. Whether that's through practical examples or helping them to develop empathy, patience and consideration for others.

My little boy is only two, but he's already showing an interest in helping round the house - particularly with the washing up! Any excuse to play with water.

There is the practical stuff like cooking, putting up a shelf and changing a tyre, but also other life skills like making a decision and managing money - I'm no good at either, but maybe he can learn what not to do!

There is definitely quite a wide palette of skills that I think all children should be taught before leaving the family home, but it doesn't need to be a very high standard. I remember starting uni and being quite shocked at the lack of very basic skills like boiling an egg, and the number of students who would spend their whole loan instalment on alcohol and then eat toast bread for weeks. My (non exhaustive) list of stuff to teach my kids would be:
Basic cooking ( including one signature dish they can cook for friends, one cake and hopefully some recipes reflecting their cultural heritage). Also what is a balanced diet
Working a Hoover (changing the bags for instance), a cooker, a washing machine
Basic DIY like changing a bulb and using a plunger ( blocked sinks were so common in student halls!)
Some gardening because it really makes you appreciate your food
Budgeting for bills and food, and I think you can start this quite young with pocket money, earning money by doing chores etc
Keeping yourself safe ie. not going off with strangers, not drinking until you don't remember your name, have friends look out for you if needed, listening to your gut instinct
Cleaning habits like making your bed in the morning, hanging clothes, a bit of ironing....
There's so much too learn to be honest, but then we have 18 years to prepare them adulthood.

I am trying to encourage my daughter to cook. At the moment she is keen to bake cakes and biscuits which is a start but I’d like her to try some main meals!

I want my children to be capable of running a household. So cooking, cleaning, washing, finances, knowing what needs to be done in terms of house maintenance even if they need to arrange someone else to do it.

To be grateful for each day they have and that they are enough just as they are. I've done my best to teach my kids plenty of domestic skills over these last few months but we have all had to learn to be grateful that there is a new day.

We’re raising our children vegetarian. I’d like them to be able to make the choice to eat meat, rather than the choice not to. I want to teach them compassion and that this choice impacts the environment.

I'm teaching my daughter to be kind but strong. To speak up if she's uncomfortable with something and hopefully to be emotionally resilient. For a child's safety I also think it's vital for parents to teach their young children never to agree to keep something a secret.

I think budgeting is one of the most important things. Knowing about incomings and outgoings and being able to save up for things and try to plan ahead.

I would love to to teach my kids how to tidy up after themselves, helping with home chores, how to budget when they would like to buy new toy and appreciate what they got

My husbands first language isn’t English so teaching our children to be bilingual is important. We both love to cook and hope to pass that on to our children.

Time management. DD is great at getting enthusiastic about things, but is rubbish at managing her time.
For example, she spends so long choosing a recipe to bake, or starts so late in the afternoon, that she's either going to have to forgo decorating the cake or else she won't be able to eat any before bedtime.

She's the same with her home schooling lessons. She plans, colours, procrastinates, then wonders why she's still faffing with science at 4pm.

Yes, selfishly, one of the first things we taught our 7 year during lockdown was to use the coffee machine. He's mastered a flat white better than my OH!

We've also loved gardening when the weather has allowed - and planted seeds for the windowsill when the weather hasn't been so good. He's loved watching his seeds grow and progress! We've also learned about Plant biology, to add into his home school journal. I believe life skills are so important, and this lockdown has actually been so good for better preparing our children with the real world around them. It's been perfect for 1:1 time without distraction (ok, we've only used the iPad every single day, but its I.T skills too, no?!)

Our 7 year old has grown up so much during this weird time we're living in - he's been amazing with learning how to help and understand his baby sister too. Which has been so beautiful to watch - something we probably wouldn't have noticed too much had it not been for lockdown!

My son is 6 so we have started with simple tasks. He is learning to tidy his room, take his dinner dishes to the sink and helps to set the table.i have also been teaching him about gardening and he has enjoyed planting seeds and watching things grow

To try stuff for themselves - they come and say can we do this or that and I say ok, go do it! They have to research it and then I don't care how much mess they make as long as they clear it up. Cooking, digging holes, painting stuff...

If I'm honest, home life skills, I moved out of my parents not knowing how often beds needed changing, what should be washed with what or even how to get the machine to work. So I now show them as I do things, DIY, cooking, cleaning, washing, bed changing etc, they're only 7-3 years old but keeping them in the loop helps them to understand how things work and gives me peace of mind that there isn't going to be a huge shock like I endured! My 7 year old has started to be inquisitive with what I cook and how, so he has started to help make meals from scratch with me, and they all help me empty the machine and put the washing in the tumble dryer and know how to turn it all on and what setting, my 5 year old even knows mummy says 'NO BRAS!' in the tumbler! Lol xx

Funnily enough my son has been asking me to show him how to do laundry, he's keen to help out. I have 8 children & they all work differently... I teach them all different skills but they can all make me a really lovely brew, that's quite important 🙊

I love teaching them things, they're all pretty self sufficient & I'm hoping more prepared for life than I was 🤞

Money management. It's shocking how many adults can't organise their finances. This would include things like buying insurance, booking holidays etc. All of the adulting.
Cooking, cleaning and laundry.
Basic DIY and flat pack assembly.
Wish me luck...

I've been teaching teenage daughter to understand everyone is different, and you can't understand where everyone is coming from on social media, so how to brush it off and not worry about it.

The most important life skill of patience. My children are only little but we have been working on the art of patience by practising taking turns whether it be baking, gardening, playing games or helping with jobs.

How to manage their finances.

I am trying to teach basic routines to my 6 and 3 year old such as putting stuff in the bin, taking their plate to the kitchen bench, the older one putting in dishwasher. Putting clothes in washing basket and shoes coats away where they belong after school. I’m
really trying to nail these little basics
now. I’d like to teach my eldest how to tie shoe laces very soon.

I want to share my passion for music. I believe this is so important for a child’s development, and such a fantastic way to engage and share with others. I would like him to be able to play an instrument, but for now, endless nursery rhymes and messing about with daddy’s drum kit are a good start for a one year old.

We are growing our own fruit and veg this year and will prepare and cook it together too. We also talk a lot about budgeting and meal planning.