Help Children Learn Important Life Skills With This Book
The timeline for the new book, How to Become Human: 65 Extremely Relevant and Super Essential Skills to Learn Before You Grow Up, really couldn’t be better. I’m sure author Catherine Newman did not anticipate or intend to release her book on teaching children the basic life skills to be realized during a pandemic, but here we are. And since our kids are staying home for the summer and there are still many months of varying degrees of isolation ahead of them, this seems like the perfect time for them to learn how to chop onions, address an envelope, or sew on a button.
When I first started reading How to Be Human, I intended to use it only to share useful ideas with you. But by the time I went through the first section called Other Creatures: How to Take Care of People, Pets, and Plants in Your Life, I was gasping for breath. All of this reads like gentle advice from a trusted mentor. She writes this in the introduction, which is addressed directly to children:
Look, we understand that you may not have chosen this book yourself. Maybe your adults even passively-aggressively gifted it to you for your birthday, along with a pair of rubber gloves and a plunger. (Welcome!) But it doesn’t really matter because we are convinced that many of the tasks that we tend to think of as routine can be truly rewarding, especially if you have the chance to step up to them with confidence. instead of being sucked into them by the grunt bulldozer known as mom or dad.
Newman’s writing is clear and direct, sometimes even funny, and never condescending or judgmental towards children. Each section is 2-4 pages long and is written in the style of a quasi-graphic novel with delightful illustrations (Debbie Fong) so it is easy to learn. It covers many topics, divided into seven chapters:
- Other Creatures: How to Take Care of People, Pets, and Plants in Your Life
- Putting it right: how to be kind and get your point across
- Dirty things: how to clean and care for your home
- Edible food: how to cook and navigate the kitchen
- Do you wear it ?: How to clean and care for clothes
- Your two cents: how to receive, give and spend money
- Useful Skills: How to Do Simple, Important Things
What really amazes me about this book is that it is perfect for kids who don’t have strong role models in their lives and who might feel embarrassed about asking a friend or teacher how to do simple, everyday things like gift wrapping or scrambling. egg, not to mention something more difficult, like learning how to save money. The book’s format makes it easy to skim through, allowing children to quickly find topics that interest them most.
As Newman also writes, “The truth is that doing meaningful things is enjoyable and enjoyable when appreciated, and these skills pretty much guarantee the combination of these two good feelings.”