Finding The Balance Between Teaching The Basics And Technology With Our Kids

The world we live into today is now totally reliant and massively influenced by the internet, with social media being at the forefront of all of this. There is of course no doubt that my six year old twin girls will be hugely influenced by technology and the internet, and there will be nothing I can do about it because it’s going to be their world. In fact, it is there world. Two of my older children actually don’t remember life without the internet, and they are respectively 19 and 20 years old, which for me ultimately shows how long the internet has been around and the levels to which it has grown.

Finding the balance between technology and some of the basics of living that will not disappear just because the internet was invented, is for me, very important. I actually want my children to learn life skills that are not technology based.

When I was growing up, there was no internet. The actual idea of communicating online simply didn’t exist. Looking back I remember the old red telephone boxes and there were lots of them and a telephone in the house that we weren’t allowed to use because my mother always said it cost too much. Looking back at that now I giggle now because I wonder what we had the telephone for! No one ever used it! Haha! Today of course it’s almost impossible to find somebody on the street that is not holding a phone to their ear or walking around with their head bowed narrowly missing a lamppost!

Looking back I was taught some very simple life lessons and skills that have benefitted my life and that’s the balance that I have always tried to teach my own children. They are actually very simple skills, but vital ones in my opinion so that our children don’t lose touch of reality and believe everything they see on social media.

1. Cooking

This has to be one of the basic skills we should be teaching our children, but nowadays we spend less time in the kitchen than when I was child. This means our kids are not learning to cook, but it’s a life skill they need in my opinion. I was taught to cook at an early age and consequently when I left home on my own, I was always able to feed myself and not live off fast food or the chip shop, which can become expensive.

2. Money

Growing up, well, without putting a finer point on it, we didn’t have any money. Thankfully that taught me the value of money and if you wanted money you had to earn it, and once you had earned it you would spend it wisely, because after all it was hard work to earn it, through life that has kept me on track with money.

I have not earned a fortune in my lifetime, but I have always done my best to give my kids what I could afford and if I’m honest, I most likely spoiled them to some extent.

My older children for a long time had no value of money, whose fault? Mine without question! I gave them too much and didn’t teach the fact that you have to earn money. Thankfully they have learnt now that it doesn’t grow on trees. I will not be making the same mistakes with my six year old twins, and already we have introduced pocket money to them which they save until they have enough to buy what they want.

3. Healthy life

Growing up I was never taught a healthy lifestyle such as how to eat a healthy diet, and in truth I have to some extent paid the price for that, with my recent ill health of the last few months.

I have always taught my older children that sport was the way forward and thankfully that has sunk in and all of them do some form of exercise. My six year old twins are now playing football and are definitely learning that sport is important.

All of them could teach me about healthy eating because they are conscious about what they eat.

So while the internet is an awesome, amazing invention, and it will be a massive part of their lives it’s not going to teach them basic life skills, so let’s get back to basics, and teach our children some of the more important things in life, other than technology.

I would love to hear your thoughts.