Wyoming Lifestyle Blog - Is 4-H still relevant for today's kids? Let me count the ways!

My daughter can decide what sports she wants to play, what activities to participate in and how she wants to wear her hair.  But one hill I will die on?   That she participates in 4-H (and when she’s old enough, FFA as well.)

I don’t care what she does in 4-H.  She can show her dog, or pick a project centered around her hamster.  She may raise cattle or pigs or do leathercraft.  What the project is really isn’t important.  It’s the process of picking a project and seeing it to fruition that matters.  Of attending meetings, participating in fundraising efforts and helping on community service projects.  And it’s meeting and learning side-by-side with families from all walks of life.

4-H will always be rooted in agriculture.  But it’s also a tremendous organization for teaching leadership and life skills to kids.

Today, my 7-year old participated in her first-ever 4-H interview judging.  She had to introduce herself to a judge and answer questions about her project.  That might not sound like much, but skills she builds today as a seven-year-old just might come in handy when she’s 23 and looking for a job.  Or defending her thesis in graduate school.  Or participating in a media interview for an organization she runs.  Or a hundred other different life scenarios.

Was she nervous?  Absolutely.  She asked me twice if I could go sit at the judge’s table with her.  And I could read the apprehension on her face as we waited our turn.

But she did it by herself.  She sat down, shook hands and introduced herself.  She answered questions about her drawing, like how she did it, what she would do differently and what she learned.  When she was finished, we walked out of the building and she said “That was fun!  I liked talking about art with her!”

Across our country, support for programs like 4-H and county fairs is waning.  I’ve heard these organizations and events called outdated or antiquated.  Kids aren’t joining clubs and organizations like 4-H and the Scouts like they used to in favor of sports or bypassing it all together because 4-H just isn’t cool.  I think one parent used the word “irrelevant” when talking about the 4-H experience.

Explain to me what’s so irrelevant about learning record keeping, public speaking, coding or accounting?

4-H gives kids hands-on skills in just about any area you can imagine.  Traditionally the organization is known for promoting skills like cooking, sewing, gardening, leathercraft, woodworking.  It is all those things and more.

One of my favorite activities in the textile arts section is called “buysmanship.”  Members learn how to shop on a budget and create a purchased outfit and accessories they can wear, using skills like comparison shopping, using coupons or waiting for items to go on sale.  That’s a pretty useful skill in my book.

They can also explore the arts through drawing, painting or photography.  And 4-H offers a ton of STEM projects as well.  Model rockets, robotics, animal science, computers, veterinary science…the list goes on and on.

One of my favorite “relevant” 4-H activity is the robotics program in our county.  At the state competition, members work together to build or code robots to complete tasks.  Yep, our 4-H members are learning coding.

So whatever interests your child, 4-H can help them become a lifelong leader.  It teaches them to conceive a project, plan it out, bring it to fruition and then discuss their outcomes.  They are allowed to challenge themselves but also to fail in the attempt and learn from their mistakes.

In my mind, though, the best part of organizations like 4-H are lifelong skills.  Members learn and practice critical thinking, decision making, running a meeting and public speaking.  By the time my daughter gets to high school or college and is asked to make a presentation, it will be old hat for her.  She’ll have been presenting in 4-H since she was six.  Run a business meeting at 30?  No problem!  She started learning parliamentary procedure and meeting etiquette two decades ago.

Basically, our 4-H kids are learning to adult before they ever reach adulthood.

As she grows, 4-H will grow with her.  There will be more opportunity for competition, more skills to learn, new areas to explore (Robotics team anyone?)  But at its core, the organization still supports exploration, decision making, and leadership.  Those aren’t antiquated concepts…they have been, and always will be, the childhood foundations upon which successful adults are built.

So when next year’s 4-H registration rolls around, our answer will be a resounding “Yes,” to joining 4-H.