Teach Your Kids Foundational Skills

Can your kids point out North, South, East, West when they are outside?

In this episode I talk about teaching foundational skills.

Jeff Putnam on Twitter/X posted that he had a team leader guy lamenting on how one of his junior team members did not know how to read a tape measure. On a Construction job!

Someone didn’t learn Foundational Skills.

Foundational Skills

Foundational Skills are ones that stand the test of time. (Also called Tier 1 skills). They are good 100 years ago or 100 years from now:

* Pattern Recognition

* Learn how to Learn

* Growing food

* Foraging

* Building and Making - Basic construction

* Repairing stuff - Fix what breaks rather than replacing it

* Cooking, including cooking from scratch. You would be amazed how many college kids graduate college and do not know how to cook (other than ramen).

* Basic first aid

* Herbal/traditional medicine

Ben Falk’s Skills to Set up a Child for Success

Can your child point out North, South, East, and West when outside?

Ben Falk’s “The Resilient Farm and Homestead” book has been my homesteading Bible for over 10 years.

In his new edition of “The Resilient Farm and Homestead, Revised and Expanded Edition: 20 Years of Permaculture and Whole Systems Design”, Ben Falk has a new section on teaching children skills - How to set up a child for success.

For smaller kids, it is the basics: Don’t walk on the garden beds, Tool safety. But he then goes into recognizing animal tracks, Plant Identification.

He then has a long list of the High-School-level graduation competency requirements that he plans to use for his child, including both pattern understanding and hard skills. Lots of permaculture skills, but also recognizing cardinal directions (North/South/East/West), and “can ID fifteen wild edibles within 1 hour in midsummer and explain one or more ways to use each one”. (This is a challenging skill that I would like to learn/refine myself).

Some of the things on the list:

* Can cook from scratch (and his requirement is on a wood stove)

* Can read a map (not just Google maps).

* Can identify contours and water movement across land.

* Can tie a variety of knots.

* Can safely and competently use all of the tools in the shop or garage.

* Can run a mile in a specific time.

* Can swim and hold his breath underwater for a certain length of time.

* Basic first aid and wound care.

* Can get anywhere on the property without a headlamp on a cloudy night in the Winter.

* Knows gun safety and use of different firearms.

* Knows basic self-defense.

* Can identify how to make money in the local area. Create a business plan. Use a spreadsheet and ledger.

Conflict resolution skills will be important

* Conflict resolution and de-escalation will be very important skills in the future.

* Managing Tradeoffs. Not everything is Winner-Take-All or Zero-Sum. There are seldom 100% winners or losers. This is one of my Top 5 most important skills to teach. It is all about mindset.

* “There are no solutions, only tradeoffs” - Thomas Sowell.

* Negotiation Skills

* Learn how to build trust with someone.

* How to interact with neighbors.

* Build community.

* How to listen instead of talking or thinking about what to say next. The importance of space and contemplation in the conversation.

Teach Worldview, Faith, and Values

Teach a kid where he or she “fits” in the world, in the family, and in life. If we did this then a child would feel more purpose, and would feel “whole”.

Have discussions about family life when you grow up. You would think that this would be common sense, but schools, consumerism and pop culture, and climate anxiety have downplayed family and kids. Many kids do not understand that the purpose of life is to grow up, have a wife, a family, and kids.

Teach Faith and Values. Don’t only outsource it to church. Live those values.

What other Foundational skills can you think of? Tell us in the Comments.

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