Life Skills

Summer is a long time to have the kids at the house.

For two months, I have to keep this pack of malcontents docile and entertained. There is so much pressure in summer—pressure to have fun, make memories, go to new places and do new things. I don’t want to go new places and do new things. Honestly, I just want to survive. We have so much already going on that we are in essence tied to the house.

My thought was: how do I make the most of this limited time I have with the kids so that they are engaged?

I have long advocated that kids learn important life skills before they leave home for college. Part of this was spurred on by watching the college episode of “Chopped”. While I was not expecting these four pre-adults to be masters in the kitchen, I was filled with abject horror while watching round after round of frankly inedible slop being served because of simple cooking errors. My own trial run at self-sufficiency had its own hiccups, a fact my parents gleefully relive as they remember the time I called for instructions on boiling an egg.

There are so many instances you run into as an adult that you feel poorly prepared for--things like applying for school loans or getting your first apartment, filling out applications, managing a household. These are unavoidably adult undertakings that can positively or negatively impact the success your first few years out of the house.

With this in mind, I decided to make this a summer of Home Camps that teach life skills.

There are few (unofficial) experts I have called in for reinforcements. My mother is doing a bi-weekly baking camp. Last week, she taught all the Abilene grandchildren that are old enough to be taught, a group of six ranging in age from 2 to 10, how to make homemade bread. The two smallest, Clara (3) and Maryn (2) were not able to grasp some of the deeper concepts but they were able to help mix and measure, pour and knead. They were all so proud of the product of their work, which engaged them for several hours and yielded four loaves of bread, a dozen rolls, and a braided loaf.

It was Mom’s week off so I used the time to teach my own how to make communion wafers so that we could discuss the significance of the unleavened bread. I believe it was only slightly sacrilegious that I allowed the children to mold them into cat shapes with the cookie cutters.

Next week Mom is coming to show them how to make apple butter and pumpkin butter, how to peel and slice and can. Maybe we will do crackers or rolls to spread the delicious product on; we will see.

My brother Jarrod has also contributed a higher skill: reading and signing a contract. He is going out of town and needed someone to care for his pets while he was away; he made Emerald apply and interview for the position, then drafted a simple contract for her to read over and sign, making sure to note that as she is not yet of age that her parents had to sign as well. I am hoping to engage him for a robotics course later in the summer as well.

Cousin Jessica, who is a talented artist, has (schedule allowing) agreed to come do an art camp one day with the kids, and Cousin Justin is going to teach horseback riding while we are in that area.

Most days lay more firmly in my domain, however, and so I have written down a list of skills that I would like to see them master and have crafted lessons around teaching them.

One that shouldn’t be a thing but you run into it more than you think you would: making a doctor’s appointment.

Telephone etiquette, overall, is an often overlooked but crucial, dying skill--how to listen without interrupting, polite tone, not nodding when someone asks you a question (seriously, why do they do that? Do they think they are on FaceTime?). Making and keeping appointments is important. Especially for September birthdays, you can’t call day-of or week-of and expect to get seen. You have to plan and schedule ahead, get your spot claimed early because a flood of students are going to be getting their well-checks and sports physicals.

My sister Amber works at the doctor’s office where our children are seen, so I called her and gave her a heads up. Then I coached Emerald through--looking up the number, listening to the automated system, speaking clearly and at an appropriate volume, saying please and thank you, answering all the questions. Afterwards, I showed her how to add it to the Google family calendar so that she could remember it in advance and we could all see it when making other appointments.

Another important skill: Cleaning.

It was kind of a revelation to me when I realized that my definition of clean and the children's’ was vastly different. Mine was “everything is picked up and put in its place”; theirs, “there is a clear walkway”. To them, it didn’t matter how much stuff was under the furniture or up against the walls or on top of surfaces, as long as you could walk through the room without stepping on things.

My mother had been pestering me to watch Diane from Denmark who cleans by a popular system called “Zoning”. Basically, you divide your house into six manageable areas. Each day, you clean in that one area and that one area only. On the seventh day, you rest!

Just kidding. There is no rest. There is only more mess.

On the seventh day, you clean the whole house. But the goal is 80% clean, 80% of the time, which means that on that final day you shouldn’t have too much mess accumulated.

We are trying the zoning system combined with another cleaning trend: the power hour. For one hour, and one hour only, you clean as hard as you can in that one area. After that hour is done, it doesn’t matter if you have anything left, you are finished. Michael particularly likes this because it sets a tangible end goal that isn’t “perfection”. Our zoning goals are:

Sunday: Yards
Monday: Bathrooms
Tuesday: Living Room/Playroom
Wednesday: Bedrooms
Thursday: Kitchen/Dining Room
Friday: Entryway/Hallway/Laundry Room
Saturday: Big Cleaning Day

I am not going to say much on that at the moment because we have only instituted it for a week so I cannot yet speak to its efficacy, but I will let you know more later on.

But during that time, I show the kids what you need to know--how to dust, avoid mixing chemicals or using too much, how to sweep and mop and load a dishwasher properly. It is somewhat slow going. My mind keeps saying “it would go so much faster if you did it…”. I have to keep reminding myself: if I don’t want to be the only one doing this forever, they have to learn it. With that spirit in mind, they are also helping do laundry, beginning to end.

Other life skills I have been working on teaching them:

Basic first aid and what to do in an emergency
Gardening and yard work
Grocery lists, meal planning, reading labels
Simple sewing
Letter writing, gift wrapping
Basic car care--how to wash a car, put in fuel, check fluid levels
Finance--how to make and stick to a budget, write a check, tithing

They are learning a lot and having fun doing it. We make a lot of time for entertainment-only pursuits, too. Days are very long in the summer so there is a lot of time to fit in everything, and we don’t have to have a lesson every day. Most days we wake up and eat breakfast, then go for a walk while it is still not too warm. Then we sit in the backyard and do devotional. They play while I do some writing or cleaning or working on whatever I have going at the moment; at the end, I have them come help clean as well--their power hour is only actually about thirty minutes because I have found you can get them to work really hard for about that long before they lose interest. Then there is lunch; afterwards, the younger kids go down for nap while Emerald and I have our bonding time. Afternoons we go our own way and do our own thing until Michael comes home and from there the day starts its steady downward slope toward bed.

It is important that I work as well to better myself, so to that end I am trying very hard to work on improving my temper and patience. Life gets so very frustrating and overwhelming when you feel like no matter how hard you try, you are falling behind. This diet can be discouraging--our choices feel so limited and prep time is outrageous. We eat five to six times a day: three major meals and two (to three) substantial snacks, and each time it requires nearly an hour of prep. I can’t make things in advance because Gabriel will find and steal them, like the homemade toasted almond granola bars I made for Sunday morning breakfast. He ate two dozen of them while we were sleeping. It was very frustrating.

Michael’s grandmother, Grannymom, gave me a lot of books that have actually helped with that. One of which Michael and I are reading together: “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff...and It Is All Small Stuff”. It gives practical and insightful advice like developing your compassion, allowing yourself to be bored, and practicing patience. Every day, I try and focus on attempting a new skill to soothe my ferocious temper and low tolerance for annoyance.

I think we are getting better. More and more of our day feels smoother, kinder. The kids’ bodies and minds and spirits are being fed, and it shows. They aren’t acting as desperate for attention, their attitudes toward one another are softening.

And I feel, just for a brief moment, like maybe...we can survive this summer.


--Andie
(Rare Post Script: If you have a skill you would like to teach at Home Camp, let me know!!)