Hellobee Boards

Driving - Driver's Ed
Swimming - Lessons
Finances - Home
Laundry - Home
Cooking - Home
Basic First Aid - Home
Making Appointments - Home
Using Google (lol - you'd be amazed) - Home/School
Dealing w/ Disappointment - Home/School

For me the big ones are cooking and laundry. It's shocking to me how many full grown adults don't know how to because their parents did it ALL for them. Also, basic self defense and safety awareness.

For DH those plus general physical health and survival skills. Being able to start a fire without matches, car skills like changing tires etc.

Managing personal finances
Cooking
Laundry/cleaning
Driving

Personally I think teaching them how to manage your money is the most important! Cooking/laundry/cleaning is not too hard to pick up, and depending on their personalities, I don't need them to excel at it as long as they can do the basics. Till this day I don't separate laundry

Swimming - belong to pool/lessons
Home life (cooking, gardening, maintenance, cleanliness, basic repair jobs) - watch, learn, do
Car and bicycle maitenance
Finances
And the one that's been I my mind most is effective communication. I worry about employers or significant others being able to emotionally manipulate them without them seeing the signs or possessing the self confidence or communication skills to stick up for themselves. I'm not sure thats really a tangible skill but I think it will effect their performance on tangible skills.

DH and I set modest parenting goals when we were pregnant with our first.

1. Stay alive
2. Love Jesus.
3. Don't be an a**hole.

A close 4th was "Don't be homeless."

So basically we feel like if we can get to 18 achieving the first 3 things, good on us, and if we can get the boys on their way to #4, awesome.

So I guess it's teaching them health, nutrition, and safety, getting them spiritually and morally well-grounded in Christ, and developing our boys into gentlemen of kindness and compassion for all people. We obviously will also put a lot of effort into developing their academic and intellectual interests, along with a strong work ethic that will hopefully lend itself to jobs and careers that make them self-sustaining. That will include a big dose of financial literacy and education on saving and budgets, but since that stuff is such a huge part of how DH and I live, we feel like it will always be in their face.

Fringe skills I would want my boys to know are cooking basic meals (goes along with staying alive I guess), basic handiwork around the house, laundry, and knowing how to fully clean a bathroom.

Cooking
Cleaning
Money Management
Sharing

Those are the ones that come to mind right now. My DH never learned to cook, and it annoys the hell out of me. If I'm ever sick, its take out or starve.

Money management is also a top priority because I don't want my kids to have to pay the high consequences of living out of your means.

Sharing is important because I don't want them to be jerks.

Who doesnt like cleanliness??