Exploring Life Skills for Young Learners; 10 Ideas for Teaching Life Skills Young

    As soon as children begin walking, you can begin to teach them important life skills. Turning these skills into habits as soon as your children can understand will help, not only you with keeping up on chores, but it will help them develop healthy habits. These habits will last them their entire life and help them be successful in all they do.

    Learning basic skills like doing laundry, doing dishes, putting garbage in the bin and many more. Will give your child the ability to be organized and figure out their own solutions to problems. Below I have listed 10 ideas you can begin teaching your child today. I will briefly give some tips to make it fun for them and share my experiences to help you get started.

    Before we begin, thank you for being here! Be patient and know it is possible! 

10 Ideas For Teaching Life Skills Young

1. Cooking/Baking- Take the time to let your kids cook with you! I let my 1 year old help make some cookies and she picked up on it really quickly. Don't be afraid to let them try safe ingredients, like flour and sugar raw. They want to know how it tastes so let them! I recommend eggless recipes to start. Another tip is to bring in a table that is at their level so they are free to walk away and come back. Most importantly remember that messes can be cleaned up.
2. Taking showers- Showing kids how to take showers and later taking showers by themselves can be great to get a bit more independence in their daily routine.
3. Organizing- This is a great skill for all ages. As they get older I like to let my kids decorate and organize their own room. That means I don't interfere with how they do it. I do have a standard though and its to keep toys off the floor in a designated space I have provided. They can put the organizer where they want, the bed where they want, clothing and so on. My only requirement is that it is picked up and clean. By 7 my son knows my standard and also knows I'm not going into his room to do it for him. Not only that but he knows why we need to keep it clean. The reality and importance of  WHY is powerful. Don't be afraid they wont understand. Talking can go a long way. Hence "Do you know why we keep food off the floor and out of the room?" "Ummmm... no Mom. Why?" "To keep ants and other pests out of  here." "OK!"
4. Playing Independently- Learning how to have time alone is a great skill. Spending quiet time alone to read, build Legos, or do something that inspires them to handle their time alone without becoming bored. When they grow up they will be alone at some point and your going to want them to know how to handle that in a healthy way. As they get even older let them go for walk or get a smoothie by themselves (Im obviously talking older mature children) but it is something to keep in mind to prepare them for before they leave the proverbial nest.
5. Meeting their own basic needs- Getting their own food, drink, taking a shower when they need one, changing if they need to and so on, are great ideas to get them to be independent thinkers and doers. 
6. Finances- Let your children see how you budget and gradually showing them what it takes to live in the 'real' world. If you can let them have an allowance for chores above and beyond then let them budget alongside you. My favorite most effective budget is a cash, zero dollar budget. Everything has a place and it is visual. A simple way for them to learn. If you don't think you can explain it well showing a YouTube video is beneficial.
7. Laundry- When they are big enough to handle laundry let them wash and dry their own clothes entirely by themselves. When they are young let them help you load, unload, and fold.
8. Learning about things that interest them- What they are drawn to, let them look it up and read about it. Help them understand how to search for correct information from multiple sources.
9. Helping with siblings- It is ok to let your kids help each other. I encourage my three to work together in tasks even with an age gap. They have different relationships with each other and it allows them to learn different ideas in a different way.
10. Exploring- Let them lead the way and make choices on adventures. Everyone benefits from this.

There you have it! Ten things to help your kids become the best they possibly ever be. These things will help them become successful adults in my very own opinion. From here they can focus more on the outside things instead having to work on implementing these habits later in life.