The Edit Your Life podcast recently aired a short episode about teaching life skills to your children. One of the co-hosts referred to such skills as “move out skills” which I find to be an awesome phrase that I’ve started using.

Getting your kids to buy-in to learning a new skill can be tough and the hosts had these nuggets of wisdom to help with some of those challenges:

  • Emphasize to your kids how little time it will take to learn a given skill. Of course, this depends on the skill in question. For maximum effectiveness, you should keep your skills as bite-sized as possible.
  • Point out that very few people get a skill right the first time. Tell your children, “don’t be frustrated…you’re not good at this thing…yet, but you’ll get there.”
  • Use a recent experience as an example and catalyst for learning a life skill. With college looming over the head of my oldest, this is the perfect opportunity to teach her more household responsibilities.
  • Make it a challenge. Consider turning life skill learning into a competition with rewards at the end.
  • Encourage other adults in your child’s life to teach him skills. I really like this point. For one, this helps distribute some of your work to others. For another, I’m frankly not as skilled as other friends and family and wouldn’t be the greatest instructor on a lot of these ideas.
  • Start today. Enough said.

And in case you’re unsure what sort of skills to start teaching your young ones, the hosts also created a handy, “100 Life Skills You Can Teach Your Kids in 5 Minutes or Less:”

Those skills are fantastic! Here are ten more I’d add to the list:

  1. Balance a checkbook, reconcile credit card statements, and, in general, manage your finances
  2. General computer skills especially with regard to security
  3. Air up a tire (maybe even change one)
  4. Identify when there’s an issue with the car (that engine light generally means something bad is going on)
  5. Operate a drill
  6. Put together a piece of furniture (bonus points for Ikea)
  7. Go grocery shopping with coupons
  8. Use a can opener (both manual and electric)
  9. Mow the grass and learn basic lawnmower maintenance skills
  10. Check and change the furnace filter