Teaching Them Along The Way: Life Skills

Posted by LaToya | 2 comments

One of the things that I love about homeschooling my boys is that we get to spend a lot of time together as a family. It’s time that if I were working outside of the home we would not get. It’s not easy, especially as a single mom who’s also in a graduate program, but I make it work. In the last few months it seems that we have hit a nice groove. I have a clear picture of where we are headed as far as school goes.

I’ve also noticed an unexpected benefit to us being together all the time {and you seasoned pros with just have to bear with me on this one.} I actually have time to work with my children as I take care of the house. Before I was able to be home with my boys I spent much of my day rushing around trying to get everything done throughout the house. I didn’t take the time to train my boys or allow them to help me with chores.
In the past month or so I’ve been taking the time to include the boys in some of my household chores. When I first started I really wasn’t sure how much my 5 and 3 year old could do, but I have been so pleased and proud of the work that they’ve done. They are now able to make their own beds each morning. It took a week of me helping them out for them to get it but now they get it done so well! My little guy is always so eager to let me know that he made his bed up on his own. They have helped me sweep and wipe off counters and tables. I’ve also been making some serious efforts to include them in cooking and meal preparation. They’ve even been helping with the laundry!

When I decided to homeschool I knew that academics would be an important part of our school day. I even knew that Bible time would be the most important part of our school day. But I didn’t really put any thought to how important chores would be and not because of the amount of work it takes to keep the house running. Working with my boys near me has given us time for heart to heart conversations. {Yes you can have those with 5 and 3 year olds.} They are able to complete a task and take pride in knowing that they are contributing to the family in a valuable way.

I recently took my oldest son with me to the grocery store and it was such a wonderful experience. We talked about how choosing 100% juice instead of soda, I explained to him why I used coupons and even walked him through the sales ad as I made my shopping list. I was very touched the next day to overhear the boys playing grocery store in their room. They were talking about their lists and my littlest guy even had to go back home because he’d forgotten his coupons! It was great!

I used to think about life skills as something that I’d get to when my boys were ready for high school to prepare them for living on their own. I never imagined what a wonderful experience it would be to teach them these different things as very young children and to build our relationship up by working together. It has been so great for me to watch my little boys develop into young men that are so willing to help out around the house.

LaToya Edwards is a homeschooling, single mom of two beautifully busy boys, one that has been diagnosed with SPD. She has a bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Development, will soon have her law degree and aspires to run her own adoption agency in the future. She is a very busy woman, but wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s loves music, poetry and reading fiction stories. But mostly she just loves spending time with her boys. LaToya get real over at Christian Momma, where she blogs about the struggle and journey of being a single christian woman and mom.