Sharing your knowledge
In my previous post I talked about people growing up without certain life skills. Nearly 1000 words of ranting. 
However, I realized I am not entirely finished with the subject. Growing up, we learned stuff. Either from parents, family, friends, where ever. And some of that stuff we learned is probably pretty doggone cool. Did your grandmother teach you to make a super flaky pie crust? Did your uncle teach you how to whittle some cool designs?
These things we learned in our lives were taught by someone that cared enough to show us. They invested their time, love, and knowledge to pass on something that they enjoyed enough to share. Now what do you do with that skill? Is it covered in cobwebs in the mental attic? Why not pull out that knowledge and pass it on to someone? Not only are you passing on a useful skill, but you are passing along legacy. You can tell your child that your grandparents taught you this. They can tell their children that it was a skill passed down in their family. And another bonus: You are bringing back a hobby or skill that you have enjoyed in the past.
Even if you don’t have children, there are plenty of people in the world that are eager to learn. Younger family members, neighbors, you name it. If you are a master in something, perhaps you could teach a class. Don’t keep your knowledge locked up in your head, share it with others.
Surprised
I had a conversation with a friend of mine this morning. He lives in Europe. I told him that I was knitting, and he said that knitting was a very large part of their country’s lifestyle. So important, in fact, that it is taught in school. So we talked back and forth about homemaking classes and such in school, and he said that they have whole schools dedicated to teaching homemaking. That got me to thinking… Why don’t we have schools like this? Required classes in school or some kind of prep school to teach teens and young adults basic life skills? While you may scoff at this, there are many, many people that enter the adult world without these living skills. My poor husband, bless him, is one of these people. So, using him as a model, I will relate how people are unleashed into the world without knowledge.
Here’s a small list of things every adult should know how to do:
Sad
I went to the store looking for writing tablets that show proper letter formation (start at the top, make a line down, etc) when I found these really interesting notepads. They are by Mead, called “4-in-1 Learn to Letter.” What sets these notepads apart is the fact that they have impressions in the paper that help guide the pencil to make the letters, as opposed to just dotted lines. They also have arrows with numbers, to show which line is first and what direction to write. What makes it 4-in-1 is that there’s a section of capital letters, a section of lowercase letters, a section of impressed top and bottom guide lines, then a section of just printed guide lines. Pretty sweet, and it is really helping. We’ve been using it for four days now (we are only working on capitals) and I can see that he’s improved in his letter formation. Once we get these letters down, I think we’ll move on to cursive. Crazy? Nope, my younger son learned cursive in preschool at the same time as he learned his printed letters. Obviously different schools. 
Confused
