A boy sits on the floor. One foot is bare. He ties the laces of a shoe on the other foot.
When my son was seven, we did our annual summer sneaker shopping, and he chose a pair with laces. Suddenly it occurred to my husband and I that my son didn’t know how to tie his shoes. Without realizing it, we’d only bought Velcro-closure shoes since he could walk. I wondered, what else we hadn't taught him. And it dawned on me: telling time. I showed him a standard clock and he had no idea what time it was.
Luckily, seven-year-olds learn quickly, and since then, he’s been tying shoes and telling time like a champ. But in today’s fast-paced, technologically charged world, there are a lot of shortcuts—and there may be lessons we're forgetting to teach our kids. According to several American studies, kids not only had academic setbacks during the pandemic, they also lost some life skills . In fact, according to a survey by Education Week, 94 percent of teachers of young children said their students found listening and following instructions more challenging than in previous years, and 85 percent said their students struggled more with sharing and cooperating with their peers.
My son was a late learner. He had no interest in learning to ride a bike until he was around eight years old. He woke up one morning and asked if someone would teach him to ride his new bike. After brushing off the two inches of dust that had accumulated on his “new” bike, he was ready.There comes a time when kids need to learn how to actually clean themselves. A bubble bath can only do so much. Around the age of five or six kids should know how to wash their bodies and hair.
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