Today is clean the house day. It is not necessarily the funniest day of the week, but it is necessary.

There are 7 people who live in my house, 5 of which are 10 years old and younger, so if we do not keep caught up on the chores then our life will be a mess.

My wife and I have two options:

1. Do everything ourselves - which would be save some time in the short run, but is not a long-term sustainable strategy for our immediate life situation or the future lives of my children.
2. Teach our children essential life skills - which takes more time during the initial training phase, but helps equip our children to be responsible members of our family (and later on to become responsible adults).

Essential Skills

The list below is not an exhaustive list of life skills that everyone should know, but at least it is a start.

1. Cooking

We live in an "eat out" culture, and it seems that many young people are not being taught how to prepare and cook food. We can even take this idea a step back and argue that almost no one knows how to harvest food (either by hunting or farming).

I appreciate ease and convenience, but I am afraid that we have removed ourselves (and our children) out of the cooking equation.

As parents, we need to help our children understand the importance of good food and good cooking methods. And think about all of the educational benefits for learning to cook:

• mastering fractions
• following directions
• developing healthy food preparation practices
• learning the importance of properly maintained tools (such as knives)
• learning how to care for others
• and the list goes on

Cooking helps our children understand the importance of life giving activities. It instills a sense of compassion and generosity into our children.

2. Cleaning

We live in a "it can wait till later" culture. We put off things that are uncomfortable and unappealing. Cleaning is definitely on my list of put off until later, but my family and I need to disciple ourselves to address this important life skill.

One of the greatest lessons my children have learned while cleaning the house is the opportunity to serve someone else, even when it is not fun.

Cleaning requires 100% of your attention, at least in our home. It is not worth going through the actions unless you do the actions correctly.

Cleaning helps our children understand the importance of life protecting activities. It instills a sense of humility, servanthood, and attention to detail into our children.

3. Managing Money

My children receive a monthly allowance. Their allowance is a tool I use to help them understand how to save, spend, and bless other people with money.

The previously mentioned chores (cooking and cleaning) are done in our home because we are members of the family, and we help each other and support each other. Their allowance is just a lesson - a very important lesson about using money wisely.

Say we go to the grocery store and one of the kiddos wants a candy bar, then they can use their spending money. Say one of the kids talks about wanting to buy a tablet, then they can continue to accumulate their savings until they can reach the goal. But there is always need around us, and we encourage our children to give a portion of their allowance to someone in need.

Managing money helps our children understand the importance of life sustaining activities. It instills a sense of responsibility, delayed gratification, and thinking of others into our children.

Conclusion

The children will raise today will be the future leaders of families, neighborhoods, communities, cities, and nations.

With parenting comes great responsibility and great reward. Let us know forget to take everyone opportunity to educate and teach our children, even in the simplest life skill. There is so much for us to teach and there is so much for them to learn!

#Steemmoms and #steemdads, we can do this!

Image Sources:
1- https://pixabay.com/en/woman-kitchen-man-everyday-life-1979272/
2- https://pixabay.com/en/cleaning-washing-cleanup-the-ilo-268126/
3 - https://pixabay.com/en/dollar-bank-note-money-finance-941246/