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

Insight Terms and Conditions apply

As well as cooking from scratch and budgeting in really want mine to look out for each other and their friends. I want them to be the ones to be brave and say when something doesn't feel right!

We’ve been doing a great deal more growing and baking during lockdown. We’ve been adding life skills into the learning we’ve been doing from school growing a range of fruit and veg and learning how to bake scones, cakes, biscuits and giving the kids more age appropriate responsibilities.

My DS is only 7 months old but there are two things that I already taught him 1) knocking on doors before entering a room 2) dinner time is family time. For the first one, he thinks it's all a game, but at least it's one thing less to teach him in the future. For the second one, dinner time is an important aspect our family life, and I want him to realize the importance of it. It's the time of day where we all get together and share our daily adventures. He enjoys it and tries to butt in the conversations and it stimulates his hunger

Well all household task r must but personally my children need to learn to cook and we have been baking n cooking a lot

I’ve been ‘teaching’ mine to clean. We’ve had to cut back so don’t have a cleaner at the moment. Needs must.

Very important life skill is money management. We have talked money in small terms from a young age. You till with coins then their own bank account. We have. A proper bank acc for them and a little one each with a few pound in. It really helps the understanding

My children have been doing lots of baking with me and even independently and they are fab!! Cakes as delicious as my own
I have tried to teach my eldest to sew on a machine- not as successful!
My youngest has been practising dressing himself lots more ready for school in September and my middle helped dad to build a mud kitchen for his little brother

I would like both my son and daughter be able to cook, budget, save and feel confident they can do things themselves and independently but know asking for help is okay

Cooking and cleaning are obvious - but perhaps easy to overlook. General car care so they can save money and do their own oil changes.

I think an important life skill to learn is self care, to put your needs high up the list without being selfish about it, but recognising your value and the importance of taking time for yourself.

And how to upcycle!!

Cooking- I'd like to teach my son how to cook at least a few cheap, easy and healthy meals so he never has to feel all he can muster up is something to pop in the oven. And once he knows the basics it will be easy to move onto other meals.

Gardening - something he already loves at 2, he's started some tomato plants and loves going out every day to see how his plant is doing. It's has flowers now which is very exciting!

DIY- Luckily DH is very handy and DS loves to "help" with his wooden tool set.

I would like to teach my children to be kind and thoughtful for others. We have two rescue animals a cat and dog so I am using their unique needs to help my daughters consider others needs. This is helping them work on their own patience and self control as well as think about other's feelings too. We also bake as it's very important that they can cook and are growing our own vegetables and herbs as it's important to know where food comes from.

My 10 year old son has ASD so I am currently concentrating on him learning to wash his own hair and tie his shoelaces. The latter seems very difficult to him, but I keep trying. These kinds of life skills are essential, so it is important that he learns.

How to meal plan, taking into account the ingredients available already to avoid waste.

To be in charge of a meal but also to help out when others are cooking.

To notice what needs doing around the place without having to be told.

I have tasked my early teens daughter with a kitchen routine of washing or loading up the dishwasher after breakfast and dinner. I have also been trying to develop her confidence in the kitchen by her independently making simple meals and baking the recipes she used to do in school as part of Home Economics. Things she has learned well are to fold and put away her laundry, as well as helping with gardening and weeding.

My son is younger at 5 and we have been talking about healthy eating such as picking out different fruits to eat every day, also preventing food wastage by finishing our meals and if you cannot, putting away for leftovers.

As a family, we have used lockdown to instill a healthy lifestyle by daily walking and a short run a couple of times a week.

Budgeting and Finance are skills we're already trying to instill in our son. He's lucky to have a savings account we regularly put money into and I'd hate for it to be wasted on frivolous things when he gets to an age where he can access it. So we're teaching him the value of money and the value of longevity in things he buys.

I think parents have so much too teach their children, the basic being an adult and cooking, cleaning, finances etc them the being a decent human being with respect, empathy etc but then there is also teaching them passion and being true to yourself and making sure you do things which make you happy. I just want my daughter to grow up loving herself ❤️

I would love my children to be able to cook healthy varied meals by the time they are adults because it is something that I struggle with.

They are only little at the minute so not there yet. My 6yo is currently learning to read clothes washing labels so he can help with laundry and my 3yo likes helping out with any wiping tasks (table, kitchen sides, dusting)

How to do laundry
Basic cooking techniques
And I guess sort of media awareness - in the sense of them being aware of how YouTube videos are put together and to make them aware of how they're being manipulated/advertised to, what's staged, what's real etc. How to tell if things are fake news, check your sources and so on.

I would like to teach him how to cook, at least know how to cook chicken and put it in a wrap with some salad. Just anything that isn’t throwing a pizza in the oven! Also how to tore food.
How to clean and do laundry before it turns into a problem. From making a bed to doing laundry to cleaning the kitchen after he uses it.
And some DIY, fix a light bulb, put together furniture, paint, that kind of stuff.

With the whole covid thing and working from home my kids aged 4-9 have had to fend for themselves- older ones making sandwiches for younger ones, getting their drinks, helping with schoolwork. Life skills to teach, on my to do list is problem solving, if there's a hurdle how do we get over it, I think kids hold back waiting for parents to solve problems for them, "I couldn't get breakfast because there are no clean bowls" well wash one!". Another one I try to instill in my kids is "bravery gets rewarded" be brave, take risks, don't over think things, try new things.

Wash clothes, cook, cleaning as well as diy jobs including building furniture. They need to know it all!

That KALLAX is life when it comes to keeping toys tidy.

We try and let our 3 year old help with tasks around the house as long as it's safe. She has a little set of steps (the yellow ikea ones actually) that are great for her to help with cooking or washing. And she has toy versions of cooking utensils and tools that she plays with a lot. A favourite activity at the moment is to find things that are screwed together so she can pretend to unscrew them with her screwdriver.

Cooking for me: knowing where ingredients come from and that they're sustainable and healthy. Other than that, budgeting and saving are crucial.

I will definitely be reaching the dc how to cook, clean and do laundry before they leave home. Hill walking and putting up tents.
There is lots of less tangible things I would want to teach them too. I want to give my kids the skills to be independent and resilient