The one thing that I appreciated from my childhood was just how many skills I learned from my parents; cooking, gardening, home repairs, auto repairs, and so much more. Part of this appreciation is seeing how many of these skills have become less and less commonplace in the younger generations. And it’s so promising to see a growing number of people seeking to learn these skills now.
Today I wanted to share a monthly experience that we have with our kids. Craft days!
I’m aware of three box stores in my local area that offer a free craft to kids; Home Depot, Lowes, and Joann Fabric. None of these stores are sponsoring this blog nor have they compensated me for this post. I mention them by name for the sake of helping out fellow parents who are looking to foster these skills in their kids or grand kids. They are free, which is perfect for families who don’t have the budget to purchase supplies.
We’ve been doing these hardware store crafts for five years now. And as long as the days get with small children, the time really flies by and they pick up the skills of using a hammer and screw driver too quickly.
This miniature corn hole craft was the first one where I sat down with my youngest and purposely focused on just being support. (The older kids decided they wanted to fly solo–time goes by too quickly where you’re sidelined on these crafts!).
Instead of telling my youngest how to build, I had him pull out the pictograph directions and tell me what we were doing for steps. I was just there to hold pieces for him while he built away.
This is the child that loves having things in a certain order and done a particular way. But it was fun watching him process the building information and doing it the way that he saw makes sense. But what was a good surprise was seeing him use the claw end of the hammer when the nail wasn’t lined up the way he wanted it. He didn’t want to make corrections the way that I would. He wanted to fix the error his way.
This reminds me of a series of lessons from a virtual life skills summer camp that I watched with my kiddos this past month. This was a series teaching basic home electrical repair skills to teens. I watched it to learn for myself because this was one skill that I didn’t learn from my dad, but there’s times where my husband is so busy that I could do these things home repairs without waiting for his schedule to slow down for him to do it.
What’s amazing about whole families learning new skills is that we’re not dependent on one person taking care of a honey-do list. We’re enables to work as a team to get something done.
For example, even though my oldest is still in early elementary, he’s able to take care of nail and screw projects. I learned some new electrical skills to help my husband out. And my husband has been learning new food preservation skills to help in the kitchen.
For our family, it’s important to learn new skills and “cross train” because it creates value in our family. One person isn’t dumped on and obligated to do certain tasks by themselves. This can be overwhelming, especially as the adults in the house, because we’re constantly juggling our schedules and to do lists. Sometimes surprise tasks just become overwhelming because there’s not enough time in the day.
But when another family member knows how to do a task alongside you, it turns into a quality time moment instead of a stressed out I-don’t-have-time-for-this.
I don’t know about anyone else’s family, but my kids are already at the age where they want to feel valued and appreciated. And by giving them fix-it skills, it’s one thing where my kids can do something for my husband or I, feel accomplished, and then feel valued with a “thank you” and “you did a good job”.
And it’s not just with tools. The kids have been learning how to cook things on their own and they’re so proud of being able to cook breakfast for the family.
It doesn’t matter the age, people thrive on feeling appreciated and knowing that they contributed something. And that value isn’t taking into consideration the memories that are made in the process.
One of my favorite memories of working on cars with my dad was when he had me crawl under a car and do an oil change with only him available to talk me through the process. It was the late 80’s and one of the biggest fads for girls was wearing press on nails.
It was when I was removing the last bolt that two of my nails popped off and landed in the oil pan just as the oil gushed out. I started freaking out. My dad thought I had lost the bolt in the pan. He and my uncle started laughing their butts off when they found out that I was looking for my nails!
Let’s just say that after I fished the nails out of the oil that it didn’t take me long to realize that there was no way I was going to be able to salvage them.
There’s nothing in the world that would exchange for the memories that I have with working on cars with my dad. Nothing goes right all the time. And it’s these memories that bring patience when I’m working on skills with my boys. Things will go wrong. Some of those things will be hilarious. And it may only be these funny memories that they remember for the rest of their lives. But that’s okay.
I know that they don’t remember the times they’ve hit my fingers with a hammer. They won’t remember the frustration of first learning how to press down on a screw driver and turning at the same time, all just to get that screw to go down into a project. But their muscle memory will live on forever as they grow to learn more skills, such as home electrical repair, car repairs, garden building projects, making meals, and so many other valuable life skills.
What they will remember forever is that their mom and dad believed in them that they could make something. When frustration sets in, they know they can problem solve their way out of it because they were believed in. But above all they will take on the new challenge of learning something new because their parents continue to learn new skills.
We’re never too young to learn a new skill. Neither are we too old.
Maybe one day soon, they will learn a new skill. And as they show us, my husband or I will learn that new skill because they want to teach us something.
So whether you have kids or grand kids or not, learning a new skill is ageless. It’s a great memory building moment to teach the young (even teens) a new to them skill.
And it’s never too late to learn a new skill for yourself.
How I Can Do That 
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