Our Old House, Our Greatest Classroom and How We are Teaching Real-World Life Skills with home repairs.

Home Ec skills aren’t just limited to cleaning and cooking. Repairing items in the house or rental is a huge and important valuable skill that your child will take with them forever. They can learn math, science, safety, reading and more from just one simple repair.

Our house is filled with mishaps and repairs because we have an old home. We knew that when we purchased it, but it has been an adventure! The first time the tub leaked, we knew this would be a great time to teach REAL WORLD skills to our sons. And so over the past 5 years, we have been learning and growing our home-ec skills together. From electrical, to plumbing to installation and landscaping, the learning has never ceased. Here are some adventures we’ve had that you may relate to and possibly can teach your child. I always try to remind myself that we are rearing future adults fo r a real world, not just academic but all skills in life. Emotional, physical, mental…teaching these skills are important in this era.

Fixing and repairing electrical – like a thermostat

Teach your child how to fix electrical SAFELY. Here’s how we did it:

• Taught him that it’s essential to turn off the main circuit breaker for the whole house because we are handling electrical we have never touched before. SAFETY FIRST.
• How to carefully follow instruction booklet for the thermostat installation.
• Look up videos or guide help online to aid with the installation.
• Using adequate lighting and going slowly with each piece.
• Doing lots of checks with the wiring to be sure it’s secure and working properly.
• Staying away from the electrical when the breaker is turned back on to be sure there are no sparks or fires.
• Success! Or troubleshooting.

Fixing and Repairing a cement/wall paste outside with mortar

Teach your child how to fix basic brick with foundation mortar. Here’s how we did it:

• Let them be involved in the process of buying the materials – measuring how much cement you need, what type and the specific tools needed.
• Safety teaching – wearing gloves and glasses for the sticky, messy materials.
• Setting up the station for materials – a tarp, all materials gathered and organized. Knowing where you want to add cement and how long you might take. Planning skills.
• Mixing the cement/mortar by measuring and labeling the bucket to make sure there are equal amounts powder mix and water. Learning math!
• Using the right tools for each part of the brick spaces to be sure the cement mixes in correctly and sets.
• Timing – learning how long it takes to mix, dry and cure.
• Cleaning up and making sure chemicals/materials are put away safely.

Building a Garden Box

Teach your child how to build, measure and create a garden. Here’s how we did it:

• We discussed and mapped out the shape of the box.
• Watched lots of how-to videos with the kids.
• Did quick math and more complex math to measure the amount of dirt with cubic feet (lots of math practice for our eldest son!)
• Going to hardware store to ask for materials – making sure you have enough boards.
• Learning how to nail, hammer and shovel.
• Learning how to use a measuring tape to make each board piece equal.
• Safety with table saw, nails and handling old rusty wood with gloves.
• Designing with the layers of dirt, sticks and rocks.
• Learning how to take turns working together to hold, nail and assemble the wood beams.

Home Repairs: Fixing and Repairing a sink garbage disposal

Learning plumbing and electrical all in one. Here’s how we did it:

• Turning off all electrical in the area so we can be safe – teaching that water and electric are conductive.
• Assessing the properties of the broken piece – for us it was that the switch for the garbage disposal did not run electricity so we knew it wasn’t the wheels or blade inside but something else.
• Taking it apart and remembering how to put the disposal back together.
• Learning about which wires go with which wires.
• Learning how to strip a wire safely with a wire cutter.
• Connecting wires and putting caps and electrical tape on it.
• Testing multiple times – our son was the first to suggest we test the electrical 3 times before putting the final cap on the machine. Smart thinking.
• Success or troubleshooting. We discovered after testing multiple times that the wiring was loose so my son helped us clip the wires and secure them better inside the disposal box.

Fixing and repairing a toilet/shower/tub

Fixing a pipe leak. Here’s how we did it:

We don’t have many pictures of this issue – but we have had multiple issues with pipes in our old home.

In the bathroom and in the kitchen, we showed them how to use pipe tape to seal a small leak until the bigger issue can be fixed. This teaches some independence and resourcefulness because plumbing can get very expensive. Being able to do a quick fix to avoid water damage is very important.

Home repairs are a valuable skill…

..to have for any age at any time in their life. It is never too early or too late to teach your child how to fix something simple or complicated. It is a joy for our family to watch our children discover solutions to everyday issues. While there are often sighs or fussing about it, there are also great rewards to seeing the repair done properly. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard my children go – it was that easy!? Yes, and it saved us $1000 or more in plumbing costs to hire someone. I am not saying that you don’t ever call a specialist. That is normal in life. Sometimes there are projects you just can’t fix yourself or are too dangerous to handle. But overall, using your best judgment, you can teach your children how to fix everyday items in your house or rental with a little bit of intentionality and creativity.