DS going to uni. What life skills have I forgotten to teach him?

[HelloCheeky]

DS is off to uni soon. I have been quite good (I think) about making sure he can take care of himself and do basic household stuff but I worry about what he might need to know, but doesn't. Is there a MN list or even a book that could reassure me or give me some last minute ideas?

Not to put half used tinned foods like baked beans in the fridge. How to chop an onion. You could always buy him a student cookbook.

Following on from someone else-to check smoke alarm weekly (if not in halls). Also will he need a carbon monoxide alarm? (long time since I was at uni)

If a girl get the 3 year implant for birth control if they have a habit of forgetting to take meds.
Get a years supply of contact lens if like my dgd you have to wear them.
Start a bottom drawer like tea towels cutlery, crockery, etc.

How to organise admin (keeping documents somewhere you can find them again).
Dc have project books with clear wallet pages for certificates, letters and bank statements.

Keep important documents in a metal box.

How to use a washing machine.
How to cook
How to clean.

Just taught my teen how to return an online clothes order.

How to read a bus/train time table

Be polite to police officers.
Remember to cut your toenails.
If your tutor says you can come and discuss work before doing it, go.

Paying Council tax, TV licence etc
Look after friends/ flatmates who have drank too much and look out for each other generally eg. Mental health issues
Basic food hygiene- let leftovers cool and then put in in fridge, covered.
Do dishes asap after meal so they never build up and are easy to clean
Wash bedsheets once a week or so, not once a term.
Security- not leaving windows open when out etc.
Budgeting for the term

Do they need to pay council tax? DS didn't.
He didn't pay for a TV licence either; he only watched streaming TV and that only through a device that wasn't plugged into the wall.

Both of those skills are useful once they graduate though.

Budgeting - although everyone splurges especially freshers week!

Shopping - encouraging him to go to Morrison’s/Asda whichever is walking distance for his groceries - I lived beside a filling station and shop when I was at uni and bread was £2.79 in there! Also drink is cheaper in the supermarket.

Cooking/Freezing - handy recipes that won’t break the bank and can be froze if needed - aswell as freezing bread, individual chicken breasts etc

Friends - make new ones but always make time for the old ! I’ve graduated uni 8 years and I’m still friends with most of the people who I went to uni with from my home town and only a few from my course - mainly due to location etc.

Overdraft - don’t go mad! Maybe be worthwhile getting a revolut card - certain about put on by him weekly therefore can’t overspend

Safe sex and respect- I wasn’t one for sleeping round but unfortunately I seem a few friends going through hard times including abortions where the boys did not want any part of.

Lastly enjoy it’s an amazing few years and a great opportunity to live your life to the full before the mundane adulthood starts !

I lived with boys for my first two years of uni. The things I had to teach them/do for them included:
Ironing a shirt for a formal event
Knowing which cleaning products to use on different areas of the home
Changing the vacuum bag
Changing bedsheets
How often to wash towels/tea towels/sheets/their own bodies
How to have a modicum of respect for women.

I don’t think the Council Tax applies.

I think the discussion re consent and safe sex should have happened way before they start University.

Council tax only applies if a house lease goes beyond the course end date.

Most unis are a soft landing to indepedence due to Halls but cooking was useful.

We got Gousto boxes for a few months before, by coincidence, and my son (who didnt go into halls) said it was the most useful thing he learned.

DS is just going into his final year. It has absolutely flown. I thought it seemed forever when he first went.
He is a completely different person to the one that started in the first year. Studies aside he has properly grown up in every way.

Please remind him that he doesn't have to run with the crowd and behave badly just because others do.

It's so easy for freshers to join in with riotous behaviour because they're away from home. They seem to think that now they're at university anything goes and good behaviour/decent standards go out of the window.

I live in a university town and, inevitably every September/October the local newspaper runs stories of drunk students waking neighbours with their drunken antics at 2am.

These "hysterical high japes" include emptying wheelie bins into residents gardens, singing and swearing at the tops of their voices as they return to their halls of residence which are situated in residential areas and urinating in shop doorways.

Just remind him that he's a decent lad - that shouldn't alter just because he's living away from home.

How to clean an oven (or at least what to buy and to follow the instructions). ds & his flatmates came close to being fined as their oven in halls was in such a state.
I wish I could say my ds grew up in first year - no sign yet. And this year he's sharing a house with 4 mates whose tidiness levels seem to be the same as his.

How to live with other people, especially women, without being a PITA.
DD ended up carrying a leather belt to whack one of her housemates whenever she was wearing her dressing gown. Took a few weeks, but he learnt to keep his hands to himself.

How much and often they can take paracetamol and ibuprofen.

They will get freshers flu / hangover / cold etc at some time and you'd be surprised how little they know about medication.

DS got Glandular Fever at the end of his first year. It presented very much like tonsillitis so that’s one to be aware of.

Don’t forget the meningitis jab.

The difference between dishwasher capsules and clothes washing capsules (although it turns out you can use dishwasher capsules nearly all year to wash your clothes before realising....)

How to decipher Good Google from Bad Google. I don't most of the things posted but I know how to Google. All he really needs to know is how to pick out genuine information from Fake News, for example, if he wants to know how to safely bleach his own hair WikiHow is Bad Google. SalonGeek is Good Google.

• How to use YouTube and other resources to find out how to clean, how to change a light bulb etc. in the UK.

-To understand and know what consent means

-Who to talk to if he has any mental health problems and to allow the university to contact you

• That you will leave him to get on with it and don't expect to see him for 6 weeks though you expect other weekly contact.

Just to reiterate what a PP said about security and making sure windows are locked when necessary - front doors need to be double locked at night too, or any time when someone could get in unheard. A Yale lock can be popped so easily, and students are burgled very frequently.