Traditional Skills

whittling, changing a tire, making a campfire, etc.

Household maintenance: changing a toilet, any kind of plumbing, basic carpentry, electrical skills, basic car maintenance skills.

How to repair things. This a valuable skill and crosses disciplines. What I mean by that is the successful mindset to repair one thing can be applied to others. I used to teach Computer Repair and the students who were best at it, usually had experience working on old cars. They thought about what had lately changed, swap out known good, look for operator error, start with the simplest and work towards the difficult, etc. etc. Being able to fix stuff is a great skill to have in life. My dad used to make me at least hold the flashlight whenever he was working on stuff, just watching him helped me learn. Then he gradually gave me more responsibility in the repair (which I often messed up), by the time I was out of High School I could fix most everything. BTW my wife loves me having this ability.

my dad didn't let me go for my learner's permit until I could change a tire and the oil in a car.

Don't neglect the other side. My brother can knit and my mother, a professional cook, taught all her sons chef professional level skills.
However, when my mother visited my older brother, who could bake a cheese souffle and flambe a cherry jubilee, my brother asked his wife to make tea. The wife laughed and said to my mother, "Poor David, so helpless in the kitchen. He can't even boil water."
My mother said, "David????"
My brother touched a finger to his lips and said,"shhhh!"
My brother didn't want his wife to know he not only could cook but he could cook better than she could.
Lazy Boy!

I second cooking. Having two spouses with good cooking skills is a blessing. When one is busy or under the weather the other can pick up the slack. I’d add meal planning to the routine and allow him to prepare breakfast or lunch and work his way to dinner.

Note: Many women can’t meal plan. Don’t assume his wife will know. It cuts down on food waste.

Food selection. How to determine ripeness, freshness, or items on their last legs. Seasonal availability is a good practice. It will trim the grocery bill.

Baking. Bread is a good starting point. He can graduate to pizza and treats. Homemade pizza is worth the effort.

Canning and preserving. Including dehydrating, curing, and smoking. If you want to see grown men cry, talk about rubs and brines.

Mending skills are equally good. Cleaners charge a fortune for simple repairs.

Gardening and herbalism. Natural remedies are healthier.

Fishing, survival skills (age appropriate), and foraging.

Woodworking and simple carpentry skills

Yours in His Service,

~bella

Skinning deer, sheep or rabbit, cutting up the carcass into various roasts and steaks and tanning the hide

prodromos said:

Skinning deer, sheep or rabbit, cutting up the carcass into various roasts and steaks and tanning the hide

Click to expand...

as a Pennsylvanian, I concur.

Great discussion as I am putting together a "on your own" website for my kids and their friends. This originally started as how to handle basic finances but has expanded. I've been using a self-developed spreadsheet for years that allows me to forecast my financial picture 12 months in advance. This way if something is coming up, like a vacation, I can see how much I can afford to save.

Car maintenance, sewing (even just simple repairs like fixing a button or patching a rip), and cooking (really anything with food- could be canning, preserving, foraging, gardening, baking, as Bella suggested).

Cleaning is another one; it seems like it would be obvious but I know people who are so messy and dirty, don’t clean up after themselves. And not out of laziness, they just really think that what they’re doing is good enough

Most of these skills discussed require methodical or systematic thought. If you can teach someone to think in an orderly fashion, they will be able to learn almost anything. As far as specific things to teach, being able to start a fire with old fashioned flint and steel, or friction, is an almost magical thing.

ArmyMatt said:

as a Pennsylvanian, I concur.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's the first lesson in the Pennsylvania General Catechism

Hermit76 said:

I agree. The lack of problem solving skills is a disease in American youth. After teaching math for several years I'm left with little hope for American youth. I blame the information age with all its easy knowledge for this. There are other issues that learning these skills will help.

Click to expand...

I learned fractions, metric and imperial measures by cooking. I learned basic chemistry also. Weights, measures, chemical reactions, all part of basic home skills.
When the lesson is tied to a real event, it is easier to learn. Book learning, lectures are not the same as hands on "watch the baking soda / vinegar" base and acid demonstration.

This might sound like an odd suggestion, but singing. Many young people aren't taught or encouraged to sing outside of church, and thus find it much more daunting in church.

Light of the East said:

Yeah, that's the first lesson in the Pennsylvania General Catechism

Click to expand...

indeed it is

Paidiske said:

This might sound like an odd suggestion, but singing. Many young people aren't taught or encouraged to sing outside of church, and thus find it much more daunting in church.

Click to expand...

Special deal:
How to Sing