Teaching Life Skills

I read an article yesterday about how our kids, teenagers especially, have outstanding scores in school but don't have any life skills. It recommended that we bring back a mandatory life skills class. I don't disagree with that. I think that's a great idea.

I saw a bunch of comments about how parents now are lazy. Or they are helicopters that insist on doing everything so little Tommy doesn't have to lift a finger. Others said we are forcing our kids into academic servitude in an attempt to live vicariously through them at the school of our choice.

I'd like to propose a different perspective. Many of us didn't have a typical upbringing through our teenage years. Some of us had to do everything in the home. All of the cooking, cleaning, the raising of siblings. Maybe we had a single parent who worked all the time or one who suffered from chronic disease, mental illness, or drug addiction. 

Now those kids are raising kids and are trying desperately to let them enjoy their childhood. They are trying to give them a better life than the one they had. And maybe they are overcompensating. But here the thing, there is no handbook to follow. They isn't a parent playbook. 

So instead of condemning parents who had no healthy examples to follow, let's give them tips on how to start integrating independence where they are.