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

My children are quite young so we are focusing on cooking and growing vegetables at the moment.

Also riding a bike and telling the time this summer!

Life basics! How to wash and dry clothes, clean a house, change oil/fill tyres and to tidy up before bed....

I would like to teach my son the value of family life and not taking it for granted..stay that extra 10 mins with your parents. Take your nan out for dinner. Yoir social life will always be ther..family won't.

How to build flat pack furniture?
Sorting and washing clothes. . . And putting them away.
Budgeting - including how to do food shopping.
To pick up after themselves.
Social and domestic etiquette in a shared household!

I’d like to teach them how to swim, to ride a bike. And also how to keep within a budget and save for their future.

The basic skills I'm working on with my children right now are cooking, washing up and cleaning up after themselves. We're also having a go at growing some vegetables this year. They help me with the recycling and are learning about why we recycle, use reusable water bottles, turn off lights and try to avoid waste. We also litter pick at the beach every summer.

They are starting to learn the value of money and the benefits of saving up by getting regular pocket money, but only the older one is really getting it so far.

I'm hoping that by the time they leave home they will be able to be cook, clean, do laundry, tidy up, budget and be protective of the environment.

Tying their laces, wiping their bottoms and baking!

I'd love to ensure my boy has basic DIY, cooking, cleaning and decorating skills
Not something you always get taught at school but important to be able to have them I think

To be kind and listen. To be wary and not accept people as friends who are unkind. They are not friends. To have an open mind and be curious about people who do not look the same as them or come form other cultures or countries.

Organisational skills
Cooking
Cleaning
Laundry
All of these have improved to a lesser or greater degree over the last few months. DD has just made lunch and is printing out some work to put in her file. It hasn't occurred to her to tidy away the lunch plates or wash them up though. Baby steps!

It's important to me my son learns to cook. Hes in the kitchen with me constantly even now at 2. Also basic skills like changing a plug (dp can teach him that) and how to iron etc. How to do laundry and change his bedding, basic decorating too. All things my dp didn't know how to do when we moved into our house.

My adult children haven't, unfortunately, inherited my good financial skills no matter how hard I've tried to get them to realise it's not a good thing to get into debt. So I'll have to settle for teaching them how to do invisible hemming, which I was taught in my first year at secondary school, and to make more effort to get stains out of clothes instead of passing those jobs to me to do all the time!!

How to make pizza (high street pizzas have ridiculous mark up)
how to put a wash on, and what happens afterwards
how to repurpose objects (hand me downs, second hand) by upcyling or using in a different way (e.g. upcyling an ikea shoe storage unit into a bedside table)
Decorate your room by making your own art

As my eldest is only 6 years old, we are focusing on basic skills we think are important, so far over lockdown, my son has learned to tie shoe laces, ride his bike without stabilisers, how to count money and read a clock. I think the clock is something that children struggle with due to everything being digital, and watches becoming less popular due to mobile phones.

How to meditate

Basic household stuff like laundry, washing up, cooking. They love LEGO so learning to follow the instructions in the sets is great practice for following a recipe or assembling furniture. Basic DIY is another, like changing a fuse, painting/decorating. Another poster mentioned budgeting and saving which is possibly one of the most important things to learn!

People skills; to find a way to get on with people and avoid forming too many opinions.

I feel this is a skill often underdeveloped in today's world, as there is always a get-out clause for kids, in almost every situation. But, real world doesn't allow for that always.

Emotional Courage, Communication, assertiveness and getting on with people

Disclaimer: I am still learning on how best to inculcate these skills

I think teaching about money is so important, especially around savings too.

I’d like to teach my kids to be totally self sufficient. Shopping smartly, cooking a range of types of food, budgeting and investing, saving and how to know when to splurge.
I’d also like to teach them other essential life skills like critical analysing information and understanding the fundamentals of politics and economics. Seeking help and support from appropriate others. Building and maintaining self esteem and resilience.
I think that lots of these should be taught in school.

I've taught mine how to make their own lunches (and mine) and use the printer and make a few different cakes! Now i need to teach them to eat less!!

Baking, growing veg at home, laundry, how to keep a clean house.

Cooking is the main skill DD and DS have improved on over lockdown. This has been very easy as I signed up for a delivery box (Mindful Chef) and got them to 'cook by numbers' (with a little help) by following the easy instructions, all food provided and measured out. We ended up with them serving healthy, restaurant quality food. Very pleased!

I’ll teach them how to manage money and how to cook

I think teaching them to cope with stress is so important. Whether that be with school work, friendship groups, cleaning the house...constricting flat pack furniture you have to deal with anything and everything life throws at you and I think you can train yourself early on to manage things appropriately and before they get on top of you

I think one of the most important life skills I'm teaching my children is patience not enough people have or use this skill in life. Apart from that I am teaching them to be cook, clean and some basic diy skills.