Teaching Through Everyday Life

I live in a neighborhood that has a home owners association which is fairly common in America. It is responsible for keeping up the shared public space, some of the infrastructure, etc. every year the bylaws require them to send out a financial summary for the next year. Included with these is an estimated operating budget and budgeted numbers which looks a profit and loss statement.

My kids are at the age where they have a grasp on basic math so I figured it’d be a good opportunity to explain how this works to them. At first the sheer amount of numbers in the page overwhelmed them but as we broke it down they could grasp it.

Later in life this might be beneficial to them or it might not, but it was a lot of fun for me spending five minutes showing them how it worked.

I can still remember when my elders would show me things that I’d never thought about before and those moments of teaching has remained in my memory since. Even if you think something is outside a child’s knowledge try to explain it in a way that they can understand. It’ll help you more than them.