Cooking and Other Life Skills: Raising Competent, Confident Kids

Teaching kids to cook and help around the house isn’t just about making meals or doing chores—it’s about building independence, confidence, and essential life skills that will serve them well into adulthood. In homeschooling, we have a unique opportunity to incorporate life skills into our children’s education, blending practical skills with subjects like math, science, and history. In this episode of “Homeschool Conversations with Humility and Doxology,” I spoke with Katie Kimball, founder of Kids Cook Real Food, about why cooking is a must-have skill for kids, how to introduce life skills at any age, and how her FREE #LifeSkillsNow virtual summer camp is helping families equip their children with real-world knowledge.

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Why Teaching Kids to Cook Matters

Katie shared how her passion for real food and health led her to develop a system for teaching kids to cook at every age. She emphasized that cooking isn’t just about making meals—it’s about building problem-solving skills, responsibility, and resilience. Plus, when kids learn to cook, they become more engaged with what they eat, often making healthier choices along the way.

How to Get Started: Teaching Kids at Any Age

One of the biggest barriers parents face is knowing when and how to start. Katie outlined a simple way to introduce kids to the kitchen based on their developmental stages:

When kids are young, start with basic skills and focus on positive connection. Try putting away dishes in low cabinets, switching laundry, dusting, cutting with dull knife, and pouring liquids.

As they grow older and motivation is still high, capitalize on it! Introduce cutting with sharp knives, using hot stove, and other more complex skills.

As tweens and teens grow, don’t feel like you have to motivate them or turn everything into something they enjoy. “You do not need their engagement. You just need their labor.” Teach them to set up routines and develop the skills that will serve them throughout adulthood.

The Benefits of Cooking in Homeschooling

As homeschoolers, we have the flexibility to incorporate cooking into our lessons. Katie shared how cooking ties into various subjects:

• Math: Measuring ingredients, adjusting recipes, and understanding fractions.
• Science: Learning about chemical reactions in baking and the nutritional value of food.
• History & Culture: Exploring cuisines from different countries and historical periods.
• Life Skills: Practicing responsibility, planning meals, and managing time in the kitchen.

Expanding Life Skills Beyond Cooking

In the final part of our conversation, Katie and I discussed how equipping kids with life skills goes beyond the kitchen. She highlighted the importance of teaching children essential skills such as budgeting, cleaning, time management, and even basic first aid. These skills prepare kids to become responsible and independent adults, setting them up for success in all areas of life.

Katie shared practical ways to incorporate these lessons naturally into the homeschool day. She emphasized that just like cooking, these skills can be taught progressively, starting with small responsibilities and building up to more complex tasks. By involving children in household management, parents can help them develop confidence and a strong work ethic.

Finally, Katie encouraged parents to model a positive attitude toward life skills, and to remember to emphasize gratitude. When kids see these tasks as valuable and rewarding rather than burdensome, they are more likely to approach them with enthusiasm. By making learning practical and engaging, homeschool families can ensure their children are well-prepared for adulthood.

How to Join the FREE #LifeSkillsNow Virtual Summer Camp

Katie’s #LifeSkillsNow summer camp is a fantastic resource for families looking to equip their kids with practical skills beyond academics. This virtual camp provides step-by-step lessons in cooking, budgeting, and other essential life skills that kids need to thrive.

Key Takeaways

• Cooking is a Foundational Life Skill – Teaching kids to cook builds independence, confidence, and problem-solving skills while fostering a deeper understanding of nutrition.
• Start Early and Progress Gradually – Even toddlers can help in the kitchen! Katie outlined age-appropriate skills, from washing and stirring for little ones to full meal prep for teens.
• Cooking is an Educational Goldmine – Math, science, history, and life skills can all be naturally integrated into cooking lessons, making it a valuable part of a homeschool curriculum.
• Embrace the Mess and Imperfection – Parents should let go of perfection and allow kids to experiment, make mistakes, and learn in a low-pressure environment.
• The Kitchen is a Confidence-Building Space – Allowing kids to take the lead in preparing meals fosters a sense of responsibility and accomplishment.
• Life Skills Extend Beyond Cooking – Teaching children practical skills like budgeting, cleaning, and time management equips them for adulthood.
• Modeling a Positive Attitude Matters – Kids are more likely to embrace life skills when they see parents treating them as valuable and enjoyable rather than chores.
• #LifeSkillsNow Virtual Summer Camp is a Great Resource – Katie’s program provides structured, step-by-step lessons to help kids gain real-world skills beyond the traditional academic subjects.
• Homeschooling Provides the Perfect Flexibility – Parents can integrate life skills like cooking and household management into daily learning, ensuring children grow into capable, independent adults.

Listen to the full podcast episode “Cooking and Other Life Skills: Raising Competent, Confident Kids with Katie Kimball” on  Homeschool Conversations with Humility and Doxology

Katie Kimball helps change kids’ relationship to food, both through work in the kitchen and helping parents of picky eaters. She’s a former teacher, two-time TEDx speaker, writer, and mom of 4 kids. She created the Kids Cook Real Food eCourse, which was recommended by The Wall Street Journal as the best online cooking class for kids. Her blog Kitchen Stewardship helps families stay healthy without going crazy, and she’s on a mission to connect families around healthy food, teach every child to cook, and instill those all-important life skills!

Find Katie Kimball Online:

• Kids Cook Real Food
• Kitchen Stewardship
• Life Skills Now Summer Camp

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Amy Sloan: Hello friends. Today I am joined by Katie Kemble, who helps change kids’ relationship to food, both through work in the kitchen and helping parents of picky eaters. Katie is a former teacher, a two-time TEDx speaker, writer, and mom of four kids. She created the Kids Cook Real Food eCourse, which was recommended by the Wall Street Journal as the best online cooking class for kids, and her blog, Kitchen Stewardship, helps families stay healthy without going crazy, and Katie is on a mission to connect families around healthy food, teach every kid to cook, and instill those all-important life skills that I know all homeschool parents are very eager to communicate to our children. So Katie, there is, you know, the official bio, as I always get us started, but I love to ask my guest to tell us, in your own words, a little bit about yourself, your family, and then how you kind of got started in this space creating classes and online cooking resources for kids and families.

Katie Kimball: Well, I’ve been online since 2009, so even though I feel like I’m still a rookie because doggone technology keeps changing so quickly, I’m kind of an OG. I’ve been around a while, and I did start teaching families to stay healthy without going crazy, just helping moms balance their budget, their time, their family’s nutrition, and sometimes those feel like competing demands. So my goal was to figure out what’s in the middle. How do you save time, money, and be healthy all with one activity or one technique? And I kept hearing a lot of feedback from my audience over the years, and they would say, Katie, I really do want to be healthy, but this is really hard because I was never even taught to cook, right? It’s like a huge mountain to climb. It’s not like I’m changing my cooking. I am learning and the more I thought about that and the older my own kids got, I realized that we, as a generation of parents, are not passing that, which we are not comfortable with, onto our kids. And so as a teacher, I thought, well, what if I could help parents have a resource that would help them bring basic cooking skills to their kids in an easy way, whether they feel comfortable in the kitchen or not? And so that’s where the Kids Cook Real Food eCourse sort of sprouted in 2016. At that time, my oldest was 10, and I was feeling that pressure of being halfway through parenting, like nine is half of 18, and you’re like, whoa. And I felt like I’d started really intentionally with him, very Montessori. He was in the kitchen all the time at 18 months and at two, but the more kids I had, the less I felt equipped to bring the older ones in. And so I just had a moment where he was teaching his fourth grade class how to make guacamole, and I thought, oh, this is still the only recipe he knows. Like, this is the one I taught him in first grade. It’s now four years later, and I’ve kind of fallen down on that job. So that’s where Kids Cook Real Food started. And it’s been such a joy to walk with thousands of families over the years, just watching them pass these skills on to their kids. And so then that’s how I got into also picky eating. Like, what do parents really worry about? It’s what their kids are eating. It’s not, you know, can they cook generally? Although homeschooling families who I love to work with are a different breed. You’re all so much more intentional. And then we started adding life skills as well out of our audience asking. Like, hey, we want to teach our kids to cook because we want them to have life skills. And I thought, well, what if I could invite 50 other experts, you know, to teach life skills? So that’s where our life skills now camp started. And whew, I don’t know if that was too long, but that’s the trajectory. My kids are now 19, 16, 13, and 10. So we, you know, I’ve been parenting a long time. We’ve got sort of a big range of kids and very different personalities too.

Amy Sloan: Yeah, my kids. So I have five, but sort of within that same age range. This year, we will all shift once all the birthdays are finished from 10 to 20. And so it’s really exciting for me to get to see some of those things I did early on with the kids when they were younger. You know, playing out now as my 20-year-old is in the house where he rents a room with some other college guys. They each take a turn cooking a meal each day a week. And, you know, he’s able to pay his bills and, you know, be a responsible adult. And I see my other kids coming up along in that same way. And it’s so exciting to see all that work and messes that sometimes happened early on really are paying off.

Katie Kimball: Oh, that’s lovely to hear. It really, it is nice. Like once they leave, I used to say, you know, dial back two or three years and I would say, we’ll see how good my parenting was when somebody launches. You know, I don’t know. I like, I haven’t had the final exam yet.

Amy Sloan: Yeah. Yeah. Well, one of the questions I often will ask my audience is what is a life skill that you wish you had learned your own growing up years? And people always have different things to share. A lot of times it’s, you know, the cooking or even just like how to keep up a clean house or budgeting, right? There’s so many life skills that many of us feel ill-equipped ourselves, let alone passing them on to our children. So I was wondering if you had any specific life skills that you think maybe are out of the box or things that you think people don’t even realize that are really important that we need to be focusing on as families?

Katie Kimball: This is such a good question, and I have the ability to reflect on over 350 different skills now with four seasons that we’ve taught kids. And I feel like I really am getting a sense for where the deficits are, where the tricky spots are, and the ones that will really make a difference. So cooking, duh, I got to say that first. Nuff said. Everybody needs to know how to cook, right? That one’s easy. But when I think about finances, that for me comes in at number two. And it’s both skills to do things like making a deposit at the bank, using a debit card, like very practical stuff, but just the awareness of finances. Like when I think about how much is invisible to kids when we make transactions, right? We have these cards. Sometimes we don’t even need the card anymore. Like they don’t even really understand what is passing back and forth for goods and services and our payment. And so we’ve got to start as young as possible with our kids, talking that through, giving them some cash at the farmer’s market so they just understand what money is and how to use it, how to save it. And then with our teens, we’ve got to talk investment. So like you, I feel really proud of my 19-year-old. He had his graduation party, got some money, and he went right to the bank and bought some CDs on his own. And I thought, oh, OK. He knows some stuff. And he has got a lot more to learn about investing, but he at least knows that it’s there, which I think is more than many. And then I thought about two really soft skills. I think the ability to problem solve is massive. Because if you don’t have, like we don’t know what skills our kids will need 10, 20 years down the road. But if they have that innate sense of, I can do this, I can figure it out, or I can figure out who to ask to help me figure it out, they’re going to be able to do anything. So that problem solving, that confidence in their own problem solving is massive. And then emotional regulation has to be said. If we’re flipping out all the time and we can’t keep our stress level under control, again, there’s very little that we’re going to be able to accomplish. So being able to, as parents, co-regulate with our kids, teach our kids strategies for dealing with the stresses that come, not protecting them from the stresses, you know, but teaching them to deal with them. And I have a feeling your audience is right for this, but I see so many parents who just protect their kids. And then when something bad happens, they have no idea how to handle it. So allowing our kids to feel a little struggle and feel a little suffering and teach them how to get through that with good emotional regulation. Those are massively important.

Amy Sloan: Oh, definitely. Sometimes it can be difficult as a parent because we’re wanting to develop grit and give these opportunities for growth and an appropriate level of struggle, kind of like when you’re weightlifting, right? And so you want that muscle, that last rep, ought to be really, really difficult. Like you can barely do it. And then to find that balance of also remembering our children and their developmental state, especially with those oldest children, right? We tend to want them to maybe be a little older and more mature than they are capable of emotionally. And so like finding that balance of pushing and giving opportunities for growth without overwhelming is so valuable and important.

Katie Kimball: Yeah, it’s a massive balance. And it’s hard. We have to keep listening to podcasts like this to tell ourselves in our heads, like, do it, do it, let them struggle. Yes.

Amy Sloan: And then sometimes for parents, right, another barrier to teaching these life skills or bringing our children alongside us can be, it can be so messy, like literally messy, sometimes emotionally messy and time-consuming. Something that we could do very quickly takes more time when we bring our children alongside. But I know it’s so valuable, right? So how do we push through that frustration and stay motivated as parents? And then I was wondering if you have an example maybe of a real life disaster that occurred in your home trying to teach a life skill and what that taught you and your kids?

Katie Kimball: Well, we have a lot of oopses in the kitchen, you know, that’s where we spend a lot of our time. And so I’m picturing once my son was putting a homemade pizza into the oven and the entire thing slid off onto like the door and the crack and the bottom. I mean, just that’s the definition of disaster, right? Like cheese and dough everywhere. So that was pretty rough. But I actually think the harder part of teaching kids life skills, cooking, and others is not the disasters, it’s just the grind. It’s all the other stuff you said. It’s the fact that they slow you down and the fact that you’re like, oh man, if I could just get this done. The fact that they’re complaining potentially. I mean, I don’t know, maybe all y’all’s kids are perfect. Oh, my kids never complain. My kids complain a lot and they try to negotiate and they try to nag their way out of stuff. I mean, they’ll be like, we’re supposed to do six chores this week, but you know, we’re kind of busy today. Maybe we could do four. And I’m like, we’re not that busy. The house is still dirty, you guys. I mean, they’re just, they’re very slick about trying to get out of doing these not fun things really. So for me, the hardest part is like the job taking two to three times as long because efficiency is like my pinnacle. I love being efficient. I love being fast. So I’m constantly talking in my head and like, Katie, the return is worth the investment. You know, like this will make a difference. And just to give people like, they say, don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle or someone else’s end. My end is the fact that I’ve had 13, 16, and 19 year olds who all cook a meal one day a week. And my husband does one. There’s only three left for me. Like, that’s amazing. And that’s awesome. Like for my schedule, my schedule is now more open, right? And my time is freed up because I invested that time so deeply when they were seven and 10, you know, when they were little and when it took longer. And I’m picturing teaching my youngest, Gabe, he’s 10 now, and he was probably seven or eight when I taught him to clean the toilet. For whatever reason, that was the thing that I hadn’t taught the kids. I’m like, yeah, it’s kind of gross. Like mom will do that one. And so as the little guy, he always got like the leftover jobs, the easy jobs. And he was starting to feel that. And he was like, mom, I want something that no one else does. Will you teach me to clean the toilet? Like he actually asked for it. Like in what universe does that happen? That was very strange. So I taught him, it took forever. Then the first time he did it, it took forever. And it was kind of a slog and he wasn’t very good at it. He wasn’t very detail-oriented because he was a boy and he was seven or eight. And so in order to make that work, we worked in the bathroom at the same time. So like the initial training obviously took a while and that was very hands-on for me. The second week, very hands-on. But by the third week, I’m like, I need to be close because he’s not very good at it yet. But I just don’t, I don’t want to stand there and watch him. So I’m cleaning the mirrors. I’m doing the sink and the counters. I literally had time to clean the entire rest of the bathroom top to bottom while he’s working on the toilet, but I can kind of keep an eye on him. It kept him more engaged because he’s a people person. He likes having people around. So like for him, that helped his attitude a lot that we were co-working together side by side. And it allowed me to like help redirect him as he was making mistakes instead of the whole thing, like go clean the toilet. Okay. Let mom check. Oh, here’s this, here’s that, you know, and like pointing out all his mistakes. So I would say that’s a really good strategy for people to use is how can you be near doing something that is productive for you while they are practicing that skill and still pretty slow.

Amy Sloan: And that’s a good reminder because I think sometimes I veered on doing the independence maybe too quickly. And then like you were saying, come in and be like, you missed that spot and you didn’t do this very well. And then it’s like critique mom. Whereas if I put a little bit more time and purpose and, you know, initial, it’s going to take more energy and time on my part there at the beginning, but it would end up probably being better for relationship and long-term more productive. Kind of makes me think of like, you know, compound interest, right? It’s hard to really feel like those first few pennies you get on a small deposit really matter that much, but over time it really, really does. And so a lot of these things you’re putting the hard work in kind of the sacrifice, the hard part in early on, but then it really pays off when they’re older.

Katie Kimball: It really does. And the hard work can, it can be years, like just so you know, because I’m still, I’m still helping him clean the toilet better two years later. However, it’s starting to save me time already.

Amy Sloan: Yeah. My youngest was actually, it was a big deal. He was eight and he was going to be moving on to our little powder room bathroom, our smallest bathroom. It was going to be his job. And then he was actually diagnosed with leukemia, which that’s not funny. But one of the things that is, has been funny over the past year and a half is his older sisters have had to keep that job. And it actually gets brought up quite a bit because I just haven’t felt comfortable with like bathroom cleaning with suppressed immune system. So I was like, don’t worry. And, you know, in another year or two, he will have to do more bathrooms than you guys ever did. I promise. That’s something to look forward to. Yeah. He’s not, he’s not minding the delay in that job, honestly. I bet not. Oh my goodness. Well, I want to kind of go through some different ages and stages to kind of help people take these ideas and be like, what does that actually look like? Like what’s realistic for different ages? So let’s start with just our very youngest children. What are some life skills that we can be teaching them, bringing them alongside us, even in those very young ages?

Katie Kimball: Well, philosophically for the youngest, we’ve got to keep it positive. So critique mom, although that’s my default as well, really needs to stay out of there before age five. So before age five, we just want them to feel connected with us and feel like they’re like positive, that they’re happy, you know, and they’re not going to be that productive. On the practical level, there are definitely things they can do. So loading and unloading the dishwasher is huge. I always tell people, try to have like at least the kids’ dishes low so that even a two-year-old can put away cups, plates, forks, knives, spoons, whatever. Moving laundry from the washer to the dryer is fantastic. Like just snitch out the things that need to hang dry, right? Then they don’t have to think. Running to get things for parents is always great. Dusting and vacuuming with a small vacuum, sweeping with a small broom. The goal here is not perfection. The goal is not to actually get the job well done at, you know, five and six and under. The goal is that they’re practicing doing the job and that they’re feeling those positive feelings or feeling like they’re a productive member of the community, of the family. And then in the kitchen, they can cut with a dull knife. They can cut, you know, melons and bananas and cooked potatoes and cooked carrots and stuff like that. They should learn how to pour liquids. Use just a one-cup measuring cup or a little creamer pitcher and put their milk or their juice or whatever in there and let them pour, measuring spices. There’s lots of little tasks. So it’s not like make muffins. It’s measure the cinnamon for the muffins, right? So just think of like what tiny slice you can give to kids. And here’s the thing. Your expectations are critical. And I have a perfect story to exemplify this. Back when my kids were smaller, we had a part-time nanny who would be in our home for a couple of days a week. And she was amazing. She was a perfect fit for our family. Became literally just like our extra daughter. And she learned a lot from us. She learned a lot about sort of the Montessori system of giving kids practical life tasks. She did some of our Kids Cook Real Food videos with my youngest because he was a baby when we filmed them. And that just kind of became part of her. She just got married. We went to the wedding. She’s going to be such a great mom. Like we are over the moon. But after she left us, then she had like a new nanny fam. And she was with these kids five days a week. And they were 18-month-old twins. And so I think she was with them from 18 months to four years. And she would have them load the dishwasher, you know, clear their own plates. She would have them move the laundry. That’s why I thought of that one because they were so motivated to move that laundry that if they were going down for a nap and they knew they had started laundry, they would be like, don’t move it. Like they were throwing fits. They would throw a fit if she moved the laundry for them, opposite of what we’d believe. What’s really interesting, Amy, is that when the nanny was asked to stay for dinner here and there with the family, here’s what she observed. At the end of the meal, the children were completely helpless. They’d lay out on the counter and wait for their parents to clear their plates. And she’s like, what is going on? Like it’s the same room, same house, same kids. She’s there. And they acted completely helpless. They would do nothing for themselves, even though she had told the parents, here’s all the things they do during the day. But they didn’t follow through themselves. The parents’ expectations were different. So that to me is fascinating because it really underscores the importance of ask them to do more, see what they can do, and then keep those expectations up. Because the more we do for our kids, the more they will let us do for them.

Amy Sloan: Yes. Oh, I love that. A lot of times it’s, when I think about this, even with school, more academic subjects, but like with math, a lot of people say, oh, I was never a math person. My kid probably isn’t going to be very, you know, they’re not math minded. I’m like, stop, don’t say that, you know. Instead, I always like to tell my children, oh, you’re a mathematician. Let’s figure this out. If this is tricky, like let’s work through it together, you know, so that they develop that idea of themself as, oh, I’m a person who is good with numbers. I can figure this out. And it’s sort of the same thing that I hear you saying, like developing this identity in your kids, like, oh, yeah, I know how to help around the house. I’m part of this team. I can actually do something that matters for the family. And when that’s just sort of an accepted expectation, this is just the way we do things in our family, it makes it a lot easier. Like there’s not that pushback. Yeah. Well, what about in elementary years, as we kind of shift from, you know, five, six and under, before we maybe get to the pushback in the tween years, as they start getting a little older, and then as we think, you know, even as they get a little bit into that where maybe they start pushing back a little bit more, not wanting to see the value or participate in the life skills?

Katie Kimball: Yeah, the great thing about the early elementary is motivation is generally still high, especially, I think, in the kitchen when you allow them to start using the hot stove and the sharp knives. Those are very motivating. It’s so exciting. A little bit of danger goes a long way for motivation. So lean into that. I feel like that’s really important. A lot of people ask me, well, how do I motivate my 10-year-old? How do I get my 12-year-old engaged and interested? And I’m like, well, first of all, you do not need their engagement. You just need their labor. Like sometimes we try too hard to get kids enthusiastic about doing chores. I’m 44, Amy. I’m not enthusiastic about doing chores. I would much rather sit and read my book than do the dishes. So I think we don’t need to create like an illogical construct or an unrealistic construct that doing chores are fun. Sometimes you just got to get it done. So for the older kids, maybe let’s not worry about the enthusiasm, but let’s say this is the expectation. Here are the routines. We want to set them up, especially by like 12 and up. We’re starting to transition them into adulthood. So any routine you set up, you want to think, could this work without my presence? Because I’m not following my kid after 18 when they’re in that house with the other guys. So could this routine work without my presence? I think that’s really, really important for us to remember in the last third of the parenting journey. If you have to pay them, pay them based on your values, right? If you have to set up rewards, then that’s great. I was overhearing my son’s girlfriend who will be in a house next year at college for the first time. And she was describing a construct that’s basically how we do chores in our house. She’s like, yeah, we’re going to list all the chores and people can choose the ones that are their favorites. And then everything that’s left, we’ll just kind of pass out each week and we’ll check them off. And I’m like, oh, that’s so cute because that’s kind of what she’s seen at our house. But it’s amazing to hear these young adults figuring out their new system. For the enthusiasm, for those of you who have young kids, the trick really is to not lose the engagement in the first place, by the way. So I mentioned that the under five crowd, they’re very intrinsically motivated. They want to be with their parents. They want to do things and be big people. And if we can keep it positive at that point and then continue the expectations, ages six through eight and beyond, chances are you’ll get a little more buy-in and a little bit higher hard work ethic. When they’re teens, some sociologists went to Guatemala and they were studying kids and chores and what they did. And they would listen to a little girl who was eight years old. She’s like, I come home from school and then I start the laundry and I start the dinner and I help my mama. And they’re like, whoa, this is not what American kids sound like at all. And the theory that they identified was that kids started very young in Guatemala with real tasks and continued to have those tasks. So it’s kind of like if the strand of intrinsic motivation is not broken, it will not be broken. But we in America, we tended as parents to be more like, oh, honey, go play. I got this. Mama will do, I’ll make dinner. And then the intrinsic motivation disappears and we can’t resurrect it.

Amy Sloan: Yeah. I think that is so valuable, such an important reminder because there can be that pressure that maybe we put on ourselves or we’ve kind of gathered from our community that, okay, we have to make things fun and exciting and get the kids all hyped up about these things. And sometimes it’s just like, these things have to be done. I’m not very excited about laundry, but unfortunately I still have to wash it and dry it if I want my family. Well, actually, I don’t do my kids’ laundry, but if I want my husband and I to have clean clothes. I actually had a little sign I had written above our sink a couple of years ago as a reminder to me to have a better attitude about dishes when it was my turn for dish duty. And it was a quote, so something like, don’t wash the dish because it is dirty, but because you love the person who is going to be using it next. My oldest son put a little asterisk and was like, but also because it’s dirty, which I thought was really funny. But there is that aspect of it’s love, right? That is going to be the thing I want to communicate as my kids get older. And between teen years, especially, that we’re doing these things, not just for the sake of doing them, but because we love the people that are being blessed by the clean dishes or the laundry that was put away or whatever it might be.

Katie Kimball: Right. And I should have included gratitude. I do always try to thank my kids for doing the job and thank you for serving the family. And gratitude goes a long way to reinforcing that important place, right? That a member of the team feel. Yeah. To really show them that they are appreciated.

Amy Sloan: Yeah. That we’re very thankful for them. Yeah. Well, one thing, especially with older teens, you know, a changing online technological landscape, maybe there’s someone who has a teen who’s like, but I mean, I don’t really need to learn any of this stuff anymore because I can just get AI to do all of these life skills for me. Like, why learn any of this on my own? What are some ways we can kind of communicate and show them the value of real world hands-on experience?

Katie Kimball: That’s a valid question right now. We’ve actually got a handful of workshops, including AI, about AI in Life Skills Now Season 4. So I’m excited about that. We’re like opening that door. I think it’s worth discussing with teens. Like, with teens, a lot of times conversation is the answer and asking them questions. Like, as you’re working in the home, how many things cannot possibly be outsourced to technology yet? My vacuuming can definitely be done by a robo vacuum. You know, dusting, they haven’t figured that out yet. They haven’t quite figured out automated laundry. Actually, my 13-year-old just said the other week, he’s like, I can’t wait until, like when I’m a grown-up, probably laundry machines will just, you won’t have to go move laundry. The washing machine will just open and shoot the laundry into the dryer. I was like, that’s awesome. You got to pull out the hang dry stuff though. And he’s like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. It’s a good point. It was just like those kinds of conversations are where we want to tackle the topic, right? And what can’t be done by technology. I do think, I think humans were really designed to like hands-on labor, not dishes. I don’t know why dishes exist either, but in general, humans, children or adults have that good feeling of accomplishment when you’ve done something with your hands. So experience is key. Like show them how it feels good to step back and look at the decluttered room, right? How it feels good to, you know, fix a broken doorknob or replace something or clean something till it’s sparkling. And I think that’s really helpful for kids to realize. Plus I’m a huge talking about learning to learn. And so, and so I think it’s a really valid conversation, especially with our tweens and teens is we have no idea what the world will look like in 10 or 20 years. We don’t know what tasks you’ll need to do, but you’ve got to learn to learn how to learn. And so, and so we’ve got to use the tasks that we’ve got today to learn how to do that and to learn that hard work ethic. And then that can be applied to whatever the world looks like once AI takes over.

Amy Sloan: Yeah. That diligence and that love and care for those around us will matter regardless of what labor-saving devices may be available, right? Well, I know that for many homeschooling families, like I can, I can relate to this myself. It can, we can hear something like this and we can think this is all great. Okay. So I need to make sure all of my children learn all of these life skills and suddenly like, oh, we can’t catch our breath. And we’re like, but I’m already behind and I already can’t fit all the good things into my day that I want to get done. And it can feel like one more thing that we are not doing that we should be doing with our kids, which I know is a natural inclination and, but not really accurate. So what are some ways that we can bring life skills into our children’s lives in a way that doesn’t add stress or of course it will take time, but is more of a natural organic part of our daily life? Yeah. That one more thing, one more thing : burden can feel crushing. So how do we, how do we relieve that?

Katie Kimball: I mean, I can help. You can use our Kids Cook Real Foodie course. That’ll take a lot of the mental load of how do I teach my kids? Where do I start? You know, what food do I need to buy? I can handle all that. I know a lot of homeschoolers will do like fun Fridays with cooking. And then, and then sometimes it’s, it’s thinking about it in a different way. Instead of this is one more task I need to do, or one more piece of my curriculum I have to incorporate, it’s I’m doing these things anyway. I’m cleaning the toilets, I’m making dinner five times, seven times a week, you know, whatever it is. And so how do we invite our kids to come alongside us? You know, and so that they’re working alongside of us. And then like I said with the bathroom, like I would be working alongside Gabe. And that was, that was so helpful for me to, to, to feel like this isn’t an extra thing. You know, this is, I’m doing my thing, he’s doing his thing. And so to think about it as integrative with life. Plus as homeschoolers, you’ve got your math and your geography and your science, and all of those are like critical to the kitchen. You know, science can be so fun with like baking soda and yeast and stuff like that, or cleaning the bathroom, the science of germs. So, so if you can think about, you know, how can I sprinkle life skills into the curriculum academically that I’m already teaching, that can be a nice way as well to integrate. We’ve, I can think of a homeschooling family who said, oh, we were studying some geography in some different countries. And so we made a recipe from these five different countries once a week for five weeks. I thought that’s so cool, you know, and obviously like fractions and math and all of that very, very much applies to recipes and making recipes for large families. How do we multiply these fractions? So, so it’s really about looking for the way in, the pathway in, instead of adding that extra thing from above.

Amy Sloan: I love that. Yeah. And I think that audio books, you know, while you’re cleaning the bathroom, keep us all occupied. But I love what you brought up about the resources you have. You know, we don’t have to do it all ourselves. I know we have used like grandparents that we have. One of my father-in-law is really gifted with investment, loves talking with the kids about, about financial matters. And so we were like, hey, do you want to do like a Zoom meeting, you know, once a week or so with the kids for a period of time? And so you don’t have to do it all yourselves. You can find people in your community, share the load, or use resources like yours. And I think sometimes we feel like, okay, I got to like learn how to change the oil in order to teach my kid. Well, maybe you just have a friend who already knows how to do it and they can take on that part of the lesson.

Katie Kimball: For sure. Outside resources are fantastic.

Amy Sloan: Well, what can families expect from the Life Skills Now Summer Camp that you have this year? And what are some stories maybe you have from previous, previous seasons?

Katie Kimball: Yeah. So for season four, which is coming up in June, 2025, if you’re listening to this afterwards, don’t worry. There’s always, that was something coming down the pipe. We’ve got, I think it’ll be almost 120 workshops this year. It’s just, it accidentally got bigger. Like, oops. I’m really, I’m really excited about some of the topics. It’s very teen friendly. So another like teen heavy, not that there’s not stuff for the younger kids, but the teens just feel so rich this year. We’ve got some people talking to teens about budgeting, how to make a budget, how to think about the cost of convenience. Those are two different workshops. Some of the health and wellness I think will be really, really helpful. Just the basics of like balancing your meal, thinking about blood sugar for various ages. We’ve got little kids and teens for that one. Our family has a blast filming with experts in person. So like tomorrow we’re going to film with a chef. He’s going to teach Ratatouille. How fun is that? Awesome. Like in his kitchen. Oh my gosh. Like in his commercial kitchen. So I’m super pumped about that. My little guy’s going to go to the bank in a couple of weeks and film how to do a transaction, how to manage a deposit and a withdrawal as an elementary aged kid. So those, I mean, they’re just, oh my goodness. And then we’ve got some great entrepreneurs. We’ve got the CEO of Trumi, which is the KidSafe phone company. He’s going to talk about his story and a couple of his kids have started businesses too and really challenged teens to make a whole business plan. Like his team and I have been communicating enough, so I haven’t seen his workshop yet, but it feels like it’s going to be again, just really rich is the word I want to use about this season. You asked about some past years. One of my favorite stories is a couple of years ago, this one girl kept getting on chat with my team and she would find typos on our pages. She would ask questions that were like really good questions that we could then use to improve, you know, the workshop or the instructions or whatever. And we were so over the top impressed by her. We actually hired her the next year to do quality control. I love that. Yes, because we’re like, oh, she’s like dripping with life skills. It was so great. You’ve mentioned changing the oil and that’s another one of my favorite stories is, of course, we rated the changing oil workshop like age 12 and up, but then one mom left her review like, oh, my four and six-year-olds were so excited. They were like running out to the car with dad and like, let me use the dipstick. That’s so great. Like life skills span ages because they can be side along. So we do like to encourage parents, like grab your younger ones and like do this together with them because it’s a really good quality time. I think that’s something that like we add to that burden as parents. We’re like, oh, I need to spend quality time with each of my kids individually. Ah, this is so stressful. But dude, like checking the oil, learning something new together is absolutely quality time and it’s a lot of fun. So we, yeah, we have so much coming down the pipe, some really big CEOs, some big like important people, which brings me great joy to think this is a really important person who has a very busy schedule and they’re going to take half an hour and talk to your kids, right? Not to you. Like there’s no benefit for them. They’re just wanting to serve the young people in the world. So it’s going to be a great season.

Amy Sloan: That is awesome. So with over 100 workshops, is that for ages like kindergarten and up to teens or what is sort of the age range that is suggested? Yeah, we say age 5 to 18 for the kids.

Katie Kimball: And then we have five workshops for parents and a handful of workshops for parents of preschoolers because I don’t really love putting preschoolers on screens, but we want to give their parents ideas of tasks that they can do with the preschoolers.

Amy Sloan: Perfect. And I will have a link to that in the show notes for this episode as well. So whether you’re watching or listening, make sure you check that link in the show notes. Katie, this has been just a great conversation. Thank you for taking the time to chat with us today and feeling reinvigorated to encourage our children to learn these life skills, to come alongside of them, for it to be part of our family culture, our family relationships. But here at the end, I do want to ask you the questions that I ask all of my guests. So the first is just what are you personally reading lately?

Katie Kimball: It’s so funny that you asked this at this weird time in my life when like lately I’ve been in the middle of five books at the same time. I walk around my house like, which ones am I still in the middle of? I’ve been reading The Body Keeps the Score Forever because I own it and all my other books are from the library. So they keep cutting in line. I’m reading Brave New Words, which is about AI by Sal Khan, the founder of Khan Academy. It’s fascinating and then it gets really redundant. So if you read it, put on your skim face. I’m reading Untangled by Lisa DeMora, which is a must read for all parents of girls heading into adolescence. Like my daughter’s 16. If I’d had this book when she was 11, it would have changed our lives. Untangled, gotta read that. And then I’m reading The Year of Magical Thinking, which is about an author and screenwriter who lost her husband just because I lost my mom a couple years ago. So I’m working on a book on grief and

Amy Sloan: suffering and reading about sad things like death. So there you go. Yeah, while all of those are all what makes up life, right? All of those many things. Those all sound fantastic. So I will have to add some of those to my own library hold list. That’s the problem with this question is I just, my stack of to-be-read books continues to grow, but I don’t end up with more time to read them.

Katie Kimball: It’s so tricky. That’s why my husband yesterday was like, we have too many books because he knocked over my stack of library books. I’m like, but I’m reading them all. Or I will read them all soon.

Amy Sloan: Well, the final question I have for you is what would be your best tip for turning around a day that seems to just be going all wrong?

Katie Kimball: Oh, I’m one who can spiral, Amy. So this was a tough question. Like spiral, meaning just getting in it and getting deeper in it and deeper in it. So I think for me, figuring out how to laugh with other people is probably the key to getting out of it or making a joke or saying a prayer and just asking God to come into the situation.

Amy Sloan: I sometimes will just start reading corny jokes with my children. That has been actually a very fun, I mean, that’s sort of, it seems like a kind of silly thing to say with the humor, but sometimes in really dark, difficult situations, those jokes have brought a lot of light to our family over the past year and a half, especially with my son’s treatment. And what was really sweet is a friend of his ended up in the hospital last week unexpectedly. And so Isaac was like, mom, mom, we’ve got to send him. Can you text his mom? Can you text him? We need to send him a bunch of jokes. So he just sat there and shared all his favorite jokes that he remembered that had brought a smile to his heart. And he wanted to share those with a friend. So I thought that was really sweet too. That’s when you know it’s working. Yeah. Yeah, that’s beautiful. Well, Katie, where can people find you all around the internet?

Katie Kimball: Well, kidscookrealfood.com is the easiest place. And like you said, you’ll link to Life Skills Now in the show notes. So that’s what we are most excited about right now. Looks like we’ve got a special link for you actually, kidscookrealfood.com slash humility-lsnpreview. So if you’re going to that when we’re not ready for registration, like you’re listening to this later in 2025, there’s always like a couple of free workshops available so that you can see what we do with Life Skills Now.

Amy Sloan: Fabulous. Well, I will have that link for sure in the show notes for this episode over at humilityanddoxology.com. I would love it if you would take a moment to leave a rating and review for the podcast wherever you are listening and share this episode with a friend. Encourage other homeschool moms and parents to bring life skills into their family’s daily routine. That it doesn’t have to be one more thing. I think this has been an encouragement and very practical as well. So Katie, thank you so much. And I look forward to chatting with you again soon.

Katie Kimball: Thanks for having me, Amy. I do hope I encouraged your community.