In childhood, it’s common for a person to look ahead and see all of the freedoms the adults in their life have, with no appreciation of the responsibilities. Hands up if you can remember saying, when you were little, “When I’m grown up I’m going to have chocolate for dinner every night”, or something similar. As adults, we realize how many ways that would be bad, and can also appreciate why it wouldn’t even be that much fun. But as kids, we often spend so long thinking about how much it would rule to be an adult that we forget to enjoy childhood.
It’s never a bad idea to prepare your child for the future. You can help them learn things that will help them in adulthood and, at the same time, show them how grown-up life isn’t what they imagine. Done the right way, this doesn’t need to be a brake on the fun of childhood. You can build in rewards in the here and now, while setting them up to handle the transition to adulthood in a way most of us didn’t. Along the way, it can help you and your child develop a more rewarding relationship.
Money management
Let’s clear one potential misconception. You should not, and realistically cannot, teach your five-year-old how a credit card works. There’s so much they’d need to understand before that could be possible, and you don’t need to be weighing them down with it. But if you give them an allowance, and they spend it all in minutes before coming back to you to ask for something else, it’s a teachable moment. Explain that you get paid for your job, and that’s your allowance. You need to make it last until the next allowance, so you need to choose carefully what you spend on.
You can teach this lesson while still letting them have something they want, but if you convey the message right you can help them see what the challenges of money management are.
Executive function
This is a fancy phrase that you may be hearing more and more. It relates to forward planning, problem solving and control of focus. Executive function is what’s at work when, for example, your washing machine breaks: you book a repair or look for a replacement, while either hand-washing the laundry on hand or taking it to a launderette, rather than breaking down in tears (or while doing that, if you prefer). It’s a hard thing to teach, but is something that should develop if you show them how problems get solved. It’s something that will also come up in childcare with the right provider. You don’t teach it as executive function – it comes across in math classes, social interaction and general family life.
Cooking
Preparing and making meals isn’t something most of us do until at least our teens, and that’s reasonable enough. You certainly don’t want your young ones using the kitchen appliances until they’ve gained some appreciation of the dangers that exist. But you can show them what goes into making a snack, a full meal, and even a special menu. What they will gain from this is a knowledge that it takes time, planning, and often far more ingredients than you can actually see on the plate in front of you in order to make the delicious food they enjoy. This, in turn, teaches them how to shop and plan their meals, which will be to their benefit when they go to college.
Critical thinking
While this is probably one for the older kids, it is always good to teach young ones not to simply believe everything they are told. If they tell you something they’ve heard and you know it to be inaccurate, probe a little deeper. Ask where they heard that, and explain to them that what people tell you isn’t always true. It can be something as basic as one of those little stories: as kids, some of us were told that if you lie, your tongue turns black. You can disprove this easily and show your little one how false it is. Encourage them to question what they are told; show them how to Google for better information. Teach them some healthy skepticism; it’s a protection that will serve them well.
Teaching your kids by lecturing them rarely works well; they’re likely to rebel against that kind of teaching. By bringing them into your world and teaching them skills they can use, you’ll develop a stronger bond and prepare them for a more successful adulthood – whatever that means to them.
