My awesome kiddo is 14 years old and almost out of school for the summer, so now is a perfect time to do a little ‘Independence’ training. I refuse to raise a butthole who uses weaponized incompetence on their partner, friends or families in the future… so I’m doing my part by making sure I don’t release a manchild into the wild.
Our Current Summer Plans
First off, YES my kid will have plenty of time to be a kid. I am fully on board with what we call ‘gremlin time’ at home – curl up on the couch in your comfies and play all the videogames and watch all the TV you want!
However, on workdays he also gets a daily chore list each morning. We’ve been doing this for the past few years and it works out great for us. I write a list each morning and he completes the tasks sometime during the day. It is usually 4-5 tasks and past chores have included: emptying the dishwasher, cleaning his room, purging old toys, taking out the trash, vacuuming, etc. I also include more ‘fun’ chores like: read for 20 minutes, create art with something, try to teach the dog a trick, etc.
Other stuff he does over the summer: local library activities (last year had a cool pottery day), a couple half-day, week-long video game programing classes at the local community college, and being a ‘mommy’s helper’ to my siblings with their smaller kids a couple times each month. On these days, he don’t have to do chores.
This year, Jack is planning to try out for the cross country team in high school, so I’m planning to have him join me on my workouts and also assign him regular runs to help him add on some mileage.
Okay, so now that you know our ‘normal routine’ let’s get to my question:
What Life Skills Should a Teenager Know How to Do?
This summer I really want to add on a couple independent life skills to his typical chore list. Here’s a couple that I’ve thought of:
- Laundry – Jack has his own laundry basket in his room and will tell me when he’s getting low on clean clothes. I think this summer I’m going to put him in charge of his own laundry from start to finish. This is an important life skill for college and when he’s on his own… and also takes something off my plate. Win, win!
- Bake a Weekly Dessert – He can be in charge of making one homemade dessert each week to have on hand for snacking. Current favorites include homemade rice Krispie treats (made with peanut butter chocolate cereal) and brownies. He can 100% take on the task of deciding on a baked good, making it and cleaning up after himself. It encourages him to find recipes, follow them with the appropriate measurements, etc. And maybe he’ll even get the baking bug and start finding some fun/interesting recipes!
I’d love to know, what independent life skills have you tasked your kids and teenagers with? By adding a little bit at a time, I’m hoping for a fully formed human being by time he goes out into the world!
