13 Essential Self-Sufficiency Skills For Kids
There are many skills children can learn and practice wherever they are! Here are 10 essential self-sufficiency skills for kids to learn.
Growing up, I thought I was quite the lucky gal. My family lived about 3 minutes from our local grocery store, and I thought that it was awesome that we could just hop in our car and shop for whatever kind of food our family needed. We didn’t have to grow our own garden or raise our own animals for meat. We were quite fortunate to be able to depend on other people to do all that hard work for us, and we could just pay the cashier at the grocery store for everyone’s services. My Nana had a different idea than my mom had, and I’m glad she did because it was her influence that helped me to grow into the person I am today.
Becoming A Self-Sufficient Family
As I got older and had a family of my own, I realized that depending on the grocery store and other businesses for what we needed wasn’t what it’s all cracked up to be. In 2015, I had enough and decided that regardless of where we were living, we were going to start doing what we could to rely more on ourselves. We planted a garden for the first time and I began preserving what we were able to grow or buy from local farmer’s markets.
I knew that living where we were, we couldn’t be as self-sufficient as we’d like to be, but I knew we could start. Now, almost 2 years later, we are closer than ever to realizing the self-sufficient and homesteading dream we have. But, I am also aware that there are many self-sufficiency skills for kids they could be learning and practicing right now where we are. Becoming more self-sufficient is a huge accomplishment, but what is even more wonderful is when you see that you have raised your children to also be self-sufficient.
I sat with my husband and we came up with a list of the top 13 self-sufficiency skills for kids that we would like to see our children begin developing. Many of these skills can be taught to both our older and younger children, making the entire learning process a family affair!
13 Essential Self-Sufficiency Skills For Kids
In this fast-paced world where instant gratification is the norm, it is more important than ever to raise self-sufficent kids. One of the main goals we should have as parents should be to foster the ability of our children to thrive independently. By teaching them the essential life skills listed here, you will be well on your way to raising children who are not dependent on the current food system.
1. Grow A Garden
Teaching a child to plant, grow, and care for a garden is an excellent way to gain more self-sufficiency within your family. Gardening teaches kids about natural life cycles, pest issues & control, invasive weeds, weather patterns, responsibility, patience, and so much more.
When we planted our garden last year, I had all the kiddos out in the yard getting their hands dirty. There was so much work to be done, and having their little hands in there helping was an enormous blessing to the entire family. They began learning how to plant seeds, care for seedlings, build fencing and raised beds, care for the fruits and vegetables growing, and harvest our bounty. This year we intend to take it one step further and allow each of our children to have one small raised bed to themselves to grow whatever they’d like. I believe that this will give them a sense of responsibility and accomplishment.
2. Cooking From Scratch
Cooking is a fundamental life skill that should be taught whether you are trying to live a sustainable lifestyle or not. Teach your children basic cooking skills (boiling pasta, sauteeing vegetables, scrambling eggs, making simple meals, etc.) and graduate them into more intensive skills like making bread (teach them the art of sourdough), preserving food, making substitutes for pantry staples, etc.
My Nana would plop me on her kitchen table or counter, and let me help with food preparation. I’d sit there snapping beans, pouring the milk, or kneading the dough. When I turned the age of 8 or 9, she’d let me help cook the meal, with little jobs like stirring the pot, peeling potatoes, and boiling water. The entire time, she was teaching me important lessons about how brown the meat should be or how high the temperature should be.
She’d insist that we taste-test everything we made because if it didn’t taste good, we needed to fix it before it went on her dining room table. I learned a lot about food preparation and cooking from my Nana and I have been pretty good about doing the same with my children. From my oldest child who is 21 down to my youngest, who is now 5, I am always involving them in whatever I’m doing in the kitchen. After a long day working or playing, there is nothing better than a healthy, home-cooked meal.
Passing this skill along to my children will ensure that they are not just able to feed themselves, but they will also adopt special family traditions that have been passed on throughout generations.
3. Self-Care
A topic that is often skipped over when discussing self-sufficiency skills for kids is basic self-care. Children should be able to take care of their own personal hygiene- handwashing, brushing teeth, bathing, skin care, etc. They should also be taught about how to monitor and manage their mental health as a part of a regular self-care routine.
You can take this a step further by teaching them about non-toxic products (like Tallow Balm and Earth Paste) or how to make their own self-care products!
4. Basic Household Chores & Farm Tasks
Involve children in household and farm management chores. Let them sweep, mop, do the dishes, wash the laundry, mow the yard, make their beds, and other age-appropriate tasks. I like to give each child a “zone” to clean each week. For example, one child will be assigned the bathroom zone. She will tidy and clean the bathroom each night before bed. Zones are rotated weekly so each child learns each zone. You can even teach them to perform basic repairs & maintenance like unclogging a drain or changing a light bulb.
You can also include them in the homestead chores. Depending on their ages and abilities you might teach them to milk the dairy animals, feed and water livestock, collect eggs, muck stalls or clean the chicken coop, weed the garden, etc.
5. Learn How to Hunt
My dad and brother are avid hunters and have been my entire life. If it wasn’t deer or turkey season, then my brother was off hiking around the woods trapping squirrels and rabbits.
This is one step toward self-sufficiency that I am adamant about my children learning. Sure, you can go into any grocery store in town and pick up a small 4-pound chuck roast for about $18, but to have peace of mind that my children could not just hunt for their own food, but track the animals and clean the animals as well, if they had to, would be a blessing.
6. Be Resourceful
Living here in town, we’re given the opportunity to recycle and we are spoiled by the garbage man coming by every Tuesday to pick up our garbage and take it away. With a family of 9, there is always a lot of garbage and if we’re not careful, there’s a lot of waste, but I’m seeing that it doesn’t have to be that way.
I’ve been teaching the kiddos that by taking the time to compost or save our veggie ends and skins for bone broth, we’re able to use what would typically be considered garbage, to continue to feed our family. Instead of grabbing those plastic bags at the store that rip and fall apart, I have my older children ask for paper, and we’ve purchased a few canvas bags or we use boxes. Later, the paper bags can be used to drain grease from our bacon or fried potatoes, boxes can be broken down and used for storage, decoration, or saved to take to the store at a later time.
Cardboard boxes can be reused as weed control and old 5-gallon buckets can make just about anything.
Broken furniture doesn’t have to be scrapped. Instead, it can be turned into something that you can use around the house. When we began sorting through our basement, we found our daughter’s crib, my husband and 10-year-old son cut it down and used what they could to make me a new spice rack for the kitchen! This helped my son learn how to re-purpose something, and how to use basic hand tools at the same time.
7. Sewing
All the women in my family used to own the same old Singer sewing machine. All of them also crocheted, embroidered, and quilted, but yet, somehow, none of that was ever passed along to me. So it’s not a skill I’ve been able to pass along to my children.
My older kiddos have learned some basic sewing in school, but nothing beyond mending a rip in a pair of pants. My goal for this year is for all of us to start learning how to do some basic sewing, and eventually graduate to making our own afghans and maybe quilts.
Having the ability to repair a rip in a pair of pants that would otherwise be thrown away, or being able to take scraps of clothing and fabric and make a beautiful quilt out of it, is just another way to not waste what you have and re-purpose items that still have a lot of life left in them.
8. Fishing
Fishing is another practical (and fun) self-sufficency skill for kids to learn. Being able to catch, clean, and cook a fish will push children and families closer to self-sufficiency and resilience as they provide food to put on the table.
We have a small pond up the road from us. If you aren’t a local to the area you probably don’t even know the pond is there. Which is a good thing, because it’s an awesome fishing spot!
We don’t need a boat to fish and there are plenty of fish for all of us to just sit back and enjoy the day.
If my children can combine the ability to hunt for their own food and fish for their own food, then I can rest knowing that no matter what, they will always be able to provide meat for their families.
9. Financial Literacy
Financial literacy is a crucial skill to teach your children, especially when it comes to self-suffiiency. Teaching kids about personal finances from an young age can help them develop a healthy relationship with money and stay out of debt as they get older.
Introduce concepts like saving, spending wisely, frugal living, budgeting, and how to make money doing things they love.
You can start teaching them the value of money by giving a small allowance each week and helping them budget the allowance into spending, saving, and giving buckets.
Learn about how one family gets their kids involved on the homestead.
10. Time Management
Teach your children to manage their time wisely. You can start introducing routines, schedules, family planner, or apps to see what works best to keep them on task.
Having a large family has forced me to prioritize and fine-tune my time management skills. If your family is like mine, there are always a million and one projects going on at any given time. No matter how self-sufficient I want my children to be, if I don’t teach them how to prioritize projects and have good time management skills, then my children may opt for the easy way out and give up on being self-reliant. For them to be successful, it’s up to me to teach them how to do that.
If I get caught up home-canning and didn’t get the rest of the tomatoes off the vine before they rot, then I’m not sending a clear message to the kiddos about priorities and time-management. By involving my children in everything, from meal planning to homestead management, then I’m offered the opportunity to teach them a little about how they should manage their time to be more successful at this self-sufficient life.
11. Camp
Camping is a great way to get the kids away from technology so they can learn how to get through a day without common conveniences.
A family camping trip is way overdue for us, and if things go according to plan, it’ll be one of the first vacations we take this year. Camping may be loads of fun, but it’s also an opportunity to rough it for a while and teach the kiddos a little bit about survival in the wild.
Taking this time to teach them important survival skills like building a fire, fire safety, building a shelter, finding, storing, and purifying water, will make any camping, hunting, or fishing trip they have in the future a lot more enjoyable. It will also teach them what they need to do to survive in case they ever get lost.
12. Basic First Aid and Holistic Treatments
Accidents can happen at any time and it is important for children to learn to respond quickly and effectively in case something happens when you are not around. Learning basic first aid and knowing what natural, medicinal plants and herbs are available in your area are invaluable skills.
Young children can learn to apply a bandage, treat a small wound with ointment or balm, and call 911 if needed. Older children can been taught CPR and basic first aid, like how to stop the bleeding on a cut finger, how to apply a tourniquet, how to make a poultice, and what they should do if someone has fallen on their back or hit their heads. I’ve also begun teaching my kids that honey is a superfood and is a wonderful antibiotic.
My children have learned that we don’t need to run to the pharmacy for cough syrup because we can make our own elderberry syrup, fire cider, or pour a cup of tea with a little honey in it. Even though we live in a very populated area, and it only takes an ambulance a few minutes to get to our home, those few minutes could mean the difference between life and death.
13. Faith
Living a self-sufficient lifestyle is stressful and at times can be extremely overwhelming. There is no way I could even begin to embark on this journey if I didn’t have faith in the Lord and if I didn’t strive to have a positive attitude. It is so hard to see the bright side of things when the tomatoes have blight, a load of jars blew up in the canner, and the tractor isn’t running. It can feel like the roof is caving in and it’s time to give up.
My goal has been to teach my children that every experience we have, whether good or bad, is a learning experience, and we should take what has been given to us and learn how to be sure we don’t make the same mistake again. We can look at our overwhelming lifestyle as a burden, or we can look at it as a blessing, in the fact that we can learn from our mistakes and we can be sure that we don’t have to rely on other people to provide for our needs or our wants.
Lead Your Kids to a Self-Sufficient Lifestyle
There are so many self-sufficiency skills for kids they can be learning, it’s up to us to set them on the right path and offer them the little bits of information here and there to help them along the way. Growing up with a Nana who raised a family through the Great Depression gave me the head start I needed to pass along the same invaluable skills to my own children.
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Raising self-reliant kids is a process, it won’t happen overnight. You will need to exhibit grace, patience, and consistency as you work to teach these skills to your children. Remember that your goal is to equip them to help them become capable, responsible, and resourceful adults who can care for themselves and for others no matter what situation they find themselves in.
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Becca is a homesteading wife and mama to 7 children. Becca and her family have embarked on a journey from living in the city to eventually moving to the country, where they plan to grow most of their own food and raise chickens, goats and a dairy cow. She strives to help her family live a more prepared and self-sufficient lifestyle and she’s dedicated to encouraging others to live out their homesteading dreams as well. Becca writes at The Well-Prepared Mama, sharing her family’s journey in creating their homestead and offering information for those that are seeking to live a more self-sufficient and prepared lifestyle. You can follow Becca along on her blog, The Well Prepared Mama.
**Updated by HOA in August 2024
