Time to teach your children something new

[hillbilly_mom]

Take the time this week to teach your children one thing new about self reliance. Tell us what you are teaching them and then give us an update of how they are doing. :)

I think this week we are going to readdress the issue of saving water. The stored water I have is older than 6 months, so it is time for it to be changed out. Since my 6yo has done this with me, I want to refresh her memory.

[hillbilly_mom]

Today I had my 17yo DS take out all the stored water we had and put into the lawn mower trailer. I didn't see any sense in wasting the water we had stored. We drove the lawn mower up to the critter pens and started dumping the water into the water troughs.

Tonight we are letting the bottles air dry and we will refill them in a couple days. I am out of bleach and we are buying more on Tuesday.

It was warm enough today that DD had a grand time playing with the water as it poured out of the storage containers. :)

[Mark_and_Nicole]

Well, ours are still preschoolers, so self reliance is not something they know about yet. Let's see....last week, I taught them how to feed and water the chickens. I read the Christmas story out for them, acting it out. Today I dug out my old guitar and we played with that for a while, tuning and playing some songs they know well. Gotta start somewhere, I guess.
Everytime (providing it's safe to do) they say,"I do it!" to me my reaction is, well, go for it!

Nicole

[bookwormom]

hmmm, my kids are grown and out of the house and I hope they learned something. I have come to the conclusion that it is of prime importance to learn things while at an impressionable age as those things will stick with you. I notice that I have an easy time of homesteading because I learned a lot as a kid and husband has a much harder time because I have no idea what he learned.
things I learned just by being around and watching , some things while still a preschooler, and I remembered perfectly how it is done, is how to butcher chickens, how to get the lining out of the gizzard, how to render fat, how to plant, dig and store potatoes. How to preserve eggs in lime for winter, which mushrooms are good to eat and where and when to find them (about 20 varieties), how to load a wagon with squaw wood to get a lot on. also how to load loose hey. My observation is that not many people are good at stacking, husband has a time of it. I learned not to waste anything, right now I have a row of squaw wood stacked against the wall, for kindling, for quick heat when I am cooking. As a kid I learned you have to IMMEDIATELY irrigate your eye if you ever get lime in it or you will get blind, tar will come off with margarine (got it on my barefeet more than once). I am sure there is more, I can tell you exactly how to make homemade bricks, because I watched as a little kid and remembered. I learned darning socks by watching my grandmother, nobody bothered to teach me those things, you tagged a long and kept your eyes open,
I learned how to do halfhitches as a little kid. and as a really little kid I learned to avoid unnatural things. very rarely I would get a soda, always clear lemon lime, and I wanted a bright red one, heck I was a little kid, but my grandmother said, no, that is bad for you, the red color is artificial and will give you cancer. I have no idea how my grandmother knew this, this was 55 years ago. I must say, nobody bothered to teach me anything on purpose, you were expected to learn on your own by sticking around and by having to help. I guess if you do things and keep your kids around they can't help but learn what you are doing.

[hillbilly_mom]

You are so right, BWM. My DD watches everything I do. She folloes me along in every step I or my DH does. She loves to watch me make bread, or start a fire. Even though she is only 6, she has already tried to start a fire. :o She is learning a lot by just watching us.

Thank you for reminding me of that. ;)

[bookwormom]

I take it back, my Dad did teach me on purpose how to saw with a big cross cut saw, he on one handle and I on the other, we cut up a huge old pear tree together.

[jim]

My son loves learning to live in the wild and other self-reliant issues. He hates school, and prefer to be a wild indian for the most part. I've got a rare one.
jim

[wax]

Hmm... I guess I haven't thought about what I teach my children in a long time; it has been so regimented for so long that I rarely consider the compilation as is suggested here.

My seven year old is enjoying summer of course.
His courses are very basic.
Mondaty thru Friday between 8am and 5pm he is given tasks by myself or his mother but those tasks are limited by the standards of my older children.

He must know how to produce an affective blade from local rocks, he doesn't enjoy flintnapping so we allow an occassional "found" cutting edge as long as he produces his own once in a while.
He must demonstrate all simple machines: He must remove his own chain and replace it on his bicycle to demonstrate his understanding of the gear for example:

Inclined planes (using a square to turn a ramp into stairs)

Lever (creating his own seesaw and explaining the properties of hinges)

Pulley (Washing mini-blinds and resetting them on the window, raising the flags in the morning and bringing them down at night)

Screw (Matching nut to bolt and threading both with supervision)

Wedge (He has just been introduced to the axe and using a blade in combination with a striking mass, but he also must explain the zippers relationship to the concept)

Wheel (He must design and draft a pattern for a wheeled vehicle which will support his weight... he is currently having trouble with this but he is just learning spacial concerns and beginning to grasp cause and affect)

He is still enjoying his childhood... but alas, my fifteen year old is pining away his summer in a quagmire of self pity. He calls his twenty-one year old brother nightly in the hope that there might be an "out" somewhere... somehow... his brother simply laughs and calls me later to suggest enjoyable reliefs. They will spend the night of the fourth of July together if the fifteen year old can only tell me why crossing the Rubicon was a test which Caeser had to pass!

Fifteen is a tough age in my household.
It is a transition of sorts.
It is a time in which a young man or woman is expected to pass beyond physical skills and define themselves for better or worse.
He can already weld steel of course, he can skin a buck, he can... well... he can do things that most of my adult peers couldn't achive if given written instructions.
But now is the time for him to start coming to conclusions concerning issues that he must face.
He must define the difference between a "Democracy" and the Federalist system in which we live... and why one is acceptable while the other is not.

He is confused in a way of course because he must find many answers in a way that he is not used to. No text book can tell him how he feels about issues like abortion and States Rights... or how he feels about the seperation of powers in our system and how the case of Jose Padilla might have (or might not have if he can argue it with affect... a very doubtful outcome but you never know!)
violated that seperation.

Fifteen is a tough age in my household!

His older brother can give advise but it only goes so far.
He lived through the trials but can only suggest that the fifteen year old does his best, and seek honesty as apposed to assume my opinion.
But then he made that mistake when he was fifteen; for a short time he thought he could predict what I would want to hear.
Unfortunately he found out that my standards are much higher than the rest of society.
One can not simply declare oneself a title, like a "Republican" or "conservative" because unless you explain why you feel that way, then you are nothing better than the sheep that line the streets of America... waiting to be told anything so you can follow instructions.

But before the reader feels too badly for him.
Before his position convinces you that he is simply suffering psychological abuse in some way:
He has decided that man has a responsibility to protect the environment in which he lives and preserve it for future generations.
He has argued such with sincerity and with conviction!
He did not get that from me.
He formed it... he believes it... it is a portion of who he is, and will become!

Fifteen is a tough age in my household, but it has purpose!

[wax]

BTW: The twenty-one year old is not done learning, but there are definate limits concerning forcing him to do so.

Last weekend he asked to borrow our camper so his freinds could hit the lake.
I told him he could if he could give me a reason for Grant's refusal to abandon his soldiers or his black veterans and why it frustrated Johnson's attempt to replace Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton with Grant himself.
My son laughed and presented me with a three page report by Friday... it was informed and his conclusions were not entirely in line with mine.

I do not expect such things, in fact I would prefer a difference of opinion.

His final line read: In the course of the life of a man who does not ask for trouble, but who does not avoid it to the extent of saddling others with a burden they do not deserve; the question of loyalty must be engaged in order to bind the man into the charactor in which he is destined to carry: Grant, like myself, chose to reward those who would sacrifice for him rather than accept the reward of those who would seek support for nothing, slavery for a meaningless offer.

Yea... fifteen is a tough year in my household, but it has merit!

Now if only I could get that seven year old to stop peeing on the toilet seat! *

[macgeoghagen]

if only i cold have had such an education. I learned to stand in line, raise my hand when i had to pee pee, and nod like a good little prisoner when the government employee said something, no matter how unintelligent.

[Funkhouser]

Our six-year-old son does numerous chores around the house and in the yard. Helping to water the garden, picking up brush in the yard, taking out and bringing in the recycle bins, as well as folding towels and making his bed, and putting up his clean clothes out of the laundry. He's very responsible, and we give him 25 cents for each of these chores completed. It gives him a sense of fulfillment to know he earned this money, and we have taught him to be frugal and wise with it.

[walls0stone]

You pay your kid?

I had a roof over my head and a bed to sleep in. That was my satisfaction. *I have some inlaw-relation who would dissagree, about kids working at all....but I thought my name was Kerry Wood Till I was 12 and it didn't hurt me at all.

[WileyCoyote]

Ditto, walls0stone.
When our oldest asked for an allowance like his friends received, DH told him, " I ALLOW you to live in my house, I ALLOW you to eat the food, I ALLOW you to wear clothes. There's your allowance." He got a job when he was 14 and has been working ever since. Our younger two followed that example. They never got a car for graduation or even for making the Headmaster's List as their friends did; they got a car when they could pay for it and the insurance. Our neighbors and friends were appalled at our cruelty - but not one of our kids were ever busted for anything as their friends were; DUI, B&E, petty larceny, grand larceny - they knew where money came from and were proud to earn it, and took care of the things they bought and earned.

[walls0stone]

You Go Wiley!

Ha, I won't pay for my girls College education. I'm putting away money, but I'm not telling her. The best off of my friends didn't have it the worst..they had it the simplest.

Wile I'm ranting, here are some other things about bring'n up kid's I'll illiterate that work from personal experience.

If your BF's nickname at school is "hardware" he ain't come'n in and with my kid...nor is he you dating her.

If you need me to use my nail gun to keep your pants up...don't think about crossing that welcome matt...

If your no good enough to date my kid...you won't...if she still wants you that bad, don't let the door hit either of you on the way out.

The first man who thinks of marring my little girl WILL learn to plow my field, milk a cow and chop my firewood. When my father came to this house to meet my grandparents for the first time, he was on a tractor plowing, and milking cows before he had any idea what happened...
true story


I brought you in this world.. I can take you out...
(I'm almost 30...the rule applies to me to)

No vegetarian boy with a whine collection, a degree in worthless crap and sissy soft hands will be coming in to date my child.

My little girl will learn to change a tire, think on her feet, and not be a pushover for whatever the crowd is doing.

You don't work..you don't eat.

Love is unconditional, but my support and approval are.