Review: things you should be doing long before high school
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 07 18, 2013
I'm homeschooling our four children, two of them teenagers, so I read this book thinking that it might point out any little "life-skill" details that had slipped through the cracks of their education. It was a huge disappointment.Many of the skills the author lists -- for example, changing light bulbs -- are things that kids should be learning from daily life. Missing from the list are important (if less frequently needed) things to learn, like how to check the breaker box, when and how to check batteries in the smoke detector, and how to shut off the water to an overflowing toilet or broken faucet...When the author touches on areas such as personal safety, situational awareness, and personal health, she's extremely vague.To be fair, my parenting style is very different than the author's. She suggests having the children write an annual report about sleep and its importance. I'd prefer to let them experiment and learn, through trial and error, how many hours of sleep they need to be at their best. And I don't believe that technology is dangerously addictive.