40 Lessons To Teach Your Kids Before They Leave Home

Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper,

“Millennials” have been the butt of a million jokes about incompetence. The generation born between 1981 and 1996 is considered entitled, ultra-liberal, and naive about how life works. But maybe they’ve gotten a bad rap because what no one ever points out is that maybe the issue isn’t with these young people but with how they were raised. I know that my own millennial daughter is competent, frugal, and independent.

As a parent, the most important job I will ever hold is “mom” to my two daughters. And if I’m not teaching them the important life lessons they need to survive and thrive in this crazy world, I’m not doing a very good job at all. Of course, once they get out there, there are a million variables, but how they deal with those variables has a lot to do with whether they were raised to think independently or raised to wait for rescue.

While I raised girls, I think it’s essential that we teach our kids skills outside the typical gender roles. Boys need to know how to cook. Girls need to know how to fix things. Maybe it won’t be their lot in life to do things outside their traditional roles, but take it from someone who never planned to become a single mom, things don’t always go the way you expect.

As my younger daughter prepares to leave the nest (*mom sobbing*) I feel confident she’ll be just fine because I’ve taught her to the best of my ability the things she needs to know to be a successful adult.

The skills you teach your children while they’re your captive audience will see them through many things – not just everyday life but also through a potential disaster.

Everyday skills every young person should have

Here are the lessons that I think every parent needs to teach their child, whether you’re raising boys or girls. Before leaving the nest, they should be able to:

  1. Cook inexpensive, nutritious meals from scratch
  2. How to use up leftovers
  3. Get from point A to point B using public transit or under their own power
  4. Budget limited money so that the most important things are paid first
  5. Mend and repair items instead of replacing them
  6. Take a course in First Aid, CPR, and anything else applicable that is offered.  The more you know, the calmer you are able to remain during a crisis.
  7. Have a good basic First Aid kit and know how to use everything in it
  8. Know some home remedies for various common illnesses: teas for tummy aches, treatment for flu symptoms, how to soothe skin irritations, and how to care for a fever
  9. Drive.  Not only an automatic transmission but also a standard transmission
  10. Change a tire.  You don’t want your teenage daughter stranded on the side of the road at the mercy of whoever stops to help. My daughters were not allowed to drive the car until they demonstrated their ability to change the tire with the factory jack.
  11. Perform minor maintenance, like checking the oil and fluid levels, filling up the washer fluid, checking tire pressures and topping them up if needed, and changing the windshield wiper blades.
  12. Use basic tools for repairs
  13. Cook a healthy meal from scratch
  14. Cook a “company” meal – everyone needs one delicious meal that’s a little fancier they can cook when they have a guest
  15. Grocery shop within a budget and have healthy food for the week ahead
  16. Speaking of that, how to budget in general, so that they don’t have “too much month and not enough money”
  17. How to clean
  18. How to do laundry, including stain removal
  19. How to think for themselves and question authority
  20. How to budget for holidays and vacations
  21. How to manage their time to get necessary tasks accomplished by the deadlines
  22. How to tell the difference between a want and a need
  23. How to be frugal with utilities and consumable goods
  24. How to pay bills
  25. How to stay out of debt (not easy with the college credit card racket that you see on campuses across the country and rampant student loans)
  26. How to pay off debt if they have it
  27. How to keep safe: they need to have basic self-defense and weapons-handling skills.
  28. How to navigate with a paper map – not Google or their car’s GPS
  29. How to make extra money fast if an emergency arises

Emergency skills every young person should have

Some of the skills above will cross over into emergencies, like First Aid. Outside of the basics of everyday life, your kids leaving home should know:

  1. How to light a fire
  2. How to cook safely over an open fire
  3. How to keep warm when the power is out, whether that means safely operating an indoor propane heater, using the woodstove/fireplace, or bundling up in a tent and sleeping bags in the living room
  4. How to keep themselves fed when the power is out – they should have enough supplies on hand that they can stay fed at home for up to two weeks: cereal, powdered milk, granola bars, canned fruit, etc.
  5. How to deal with the most likely disasters in their area
  6. About the dangers of off-grid heating and cooking, such as the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning in unventilated rooms.
  7. How to purify water
  8. How to keep safe both at home and when they’re out. Be sure they know the difference between cover and concealment
  9. How to do laundry by hand and hang it to dry
  10. How to keep things sanitary without running water
  11. How to acquire food: foraging, fishing, gardening, hunting

It’s our job to make sure our kids are competent when they leave home.

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James
James

This is definitely a good list for kids(and everyone else),would add a full size spare tire to vehicle,those donuts better then nothing but not by much!

As for at the mercy of a stranger,well,if me your kids fine.I always stop to help strangers if needed(while keeping aware may be a trap)and has always turned out well and even made a great friend whose wife and kids broken down and gave em a hand. he tracked me down and bought me a few beers as thanks and 20+ years later we are still friends and actually I consider them family.

ragman
ragman

Situational awareness, especially around blacks, is paramount. John Derbyshire’s “The Talk:Non Black version” is also an excellent resource.

Ginger
Ginger

Number 32 should have been: How to make sure a fire is out after using it.

A customer of mine cleaned the ashes out of the fireplace and put them in a plastic bucket right outside the kitchen door on the wood deck. Burned his house down to the ground and barely made it out alive.

MSyzlak
MSyzlak

“But maybe they’ve gotten a bad rap because what no one ever points out is that maybe the issue isn’t with these young people but with how they were raised.”

Absolutely right. I’ve said it before regarding Boomers, who are always catching blame for the state of the union. Even if generalizations laid against Boomers are accurate, how’d it get that way. Well, by the so-called “greatest generation” doing a shit job of raising their children — res ipsa.

If an entire generation can be generalized to have this fault or that fault, the real fault and blame must lie with the generation that spawned them. May as well blame an infant for being lazy, or not handling his finances well … “Stupid baby! What the hell’s wrong with you?” There are always exceptions, but the faults of a child (even an adult child) can usually be laid at the feet of the parents.

Of course, this generational blaming can be traced back generation upon generation, making generational blame almost pointless, …. almost.
What I think can be said is that parents raise their children as they were raised, and as though their children were going to face a world no different from the one they themselves faced. Making each generation fairly well-prepared for a world that disappeared 30 years prior.

That, and some parenting faults — like pawning off nearly all parenting duties on government k-12 “daycare” — become more widespread with each passing generation.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Everyone understands that there are exceptions in every generation. That doesn’t change the fact that the boomers, as a whole, embraced and furthered an entire set of practices that leave the following generations behind a severely large 8 ball … 2 income households; child care, electronic diversions, divorce, abortion, faithlessness, self absorption, metastic growth of government and corruption, etc., etc., etc. As an accurate generality, these things have all grown to an unprecedented degree under the boomers’ care.

Mygirl...maybe

America started downhill the day televisions became major fixtures in every home.

tee ming refuse
tee ming refuse

OMG-read the Little House books, Laura is left in charge of her siblings at TEN YEARS OLD, with Fire, Guns, and Sharp Knives, oh the horror, and having to memorize dozens of bible verses, and being forced- actually forced- to help sweep and wash and sew and garden and prepare food. Where’s DHS when you need them? No books, tv or internet or even music, have to come up with their own games. Have to obey parents without question and can’t refuse or negotiate terms. My head is exploding!

Thunderbird
Thunderbird

How about tolerance of others by your own example?

BB
BB

Ragman point is spot on. Situation Awareness around blacks and I would add all people. Me, I don’t have my guard up around other white people but as a young girl it’s a good idea to be aware of all people. I would as add getting a concealed weapon permit . Then get a good revolver that has knock down power . If not that then at least pepper spray.

impermanence
impermanence

You mean you don’t like how Corporate America raised your kids?

On the one hand you have BB parents who could care less about anything except their own perceived needs, and on the other, their woefully ignorant kids who appear to have little interest in growing up, instead, completely consumed with being this month’s poster child for every emotional issue imaginable.

BB
BB

Impermanence ,hey you bastard god-damned vermit. You don’t know anything about my parents. My Father is dead and my mother is 78.My parents ,my family are in my heart forever. So keep your slander to your own parents ,your own family.

AC
AC

I think in Impermanence’s comment, ‘BB’ may have referred to ‘baby boomers,’ rather than to you. I could be wrong.

TC
TC

In one of the Malcolm Gladwell books (sorry don’t remember which one) he pointed out that someone once did a study of the Scotch-Irish people of the Appalachian mountains trying to figure out why they were so quick to fight over a simple familial insult. They figured that from the humble beginnings of farmers and herders going all the way back to Europe over hundreds of years that their family honor was often the most valuable thing they had, so they guarded it fiercely.

Stucky

“On the one hand you have BB parents who could care less about anything except their own perceived needs ….”

Oh, great! Another goddamned shitfuk Newbie who doesn’t know jackshit about anyone here …. yet, pretends to know not only about a regular poster, but even BB’s PARENTS!!!

Let me give you three options, impermanence;

— 1). Go suck Diseased Donkey Dick
— 2). Go kill yourself.
— 3). Get the fuck outta here and don’t come back.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Recognize physiognomy and maintain situational awareness at all times.

Anonymous
Anonymous
Stucky

Great list. Really. I can only add three more;

41. Don’t eat yellow snow.

42. Switch hands when masturbating. (Otherwise one arm gets abnormally large).

43. Don’t marry a tall rail-thin beeatch with a Mennonite background and a huge nose and with a hairy ass.

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