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?

My gaster is somewhat flabbered by the notion that you need to "teach" some of this stuff. How can you need lessons in how to use a bus timetable? Or even how to use a washing machine? You put your stuff in (lights or darks), add power or liquid and press go. Admittedly all machines are different, but I suspect it takes 2 minutes max to explain how to use ours.

Agree with "consent" and that porn does not equal nice loving sex.

Do you really need lessons in how to clean? The odd tip is good (eg someone showed me how to use newspaper to polish windows) but generally you just get a cloth and your cleaning stuff and get to work!

My ds doesn't do any of this stuff but that's because he's a lazy wotsit not because he doesn't know how. When he goes away he'll either live in a pigsty or realise he has to do it (I was also a lazy wotsit but don't like living in a pigsty now).

I agree that if they have got as far as going to Uni they don’t need a lesson on cleaning or putting a load of washing on. It’s not hard.

Bus timetables - if a child has been brought up in a rural location, they may well have never used a bus much, or not had a choice of buses. Very rural children may have been driven all their lives.

GPs - if yiu’ve Had the same GP since you were a baby, why would you know you need to register to use a different one?

Washing machines - I broke DM’s first time I used it as a teenager. I turned the dial the wrong way and snapped off all the teeth. There may not be much to it, but the principal that you need to separate darks and lights, choose temperature, choose spin speed, choose programme, look at care labels, what you can and can’t tumblr nerds teaching surely?

Some excellent ideas here..Hope thread is still around when grandson goes in two years

How can you need lessons in how to use a bus timetable

Now I wish that I had had that. I lived very rurally before going to uni. There was one bus, and it went on a Thursday.

Most timetables are online now.

Xpost bike

Let’s just say I was confused as fuck seeing a transport interchange for the first time.

There's a Facebook group for parents/students going off to university for the first time.

www.facebook.com/groups/488235648182391/?ref=share

It's called what I wish I knew about university.

I picked out some main suggestions in a kind of list if you’d like. It

Make a list of these life skills for uni

Some are a bit tongue in cheek

Who to call in a utility emergency?
What to do if smoke alarm goes off?
How to label his food in the fridge?
Hangover cures?
Know your number incase his phone is broken?
How to change a loo roll?!

How to use a launderette washing machine rather than a home one.

The difference between fabric softener and washing powder
How to cook some basic recipes that most people like eg pasta bake.
That he will never be the only person feeling hungover tired and a bit homesick
Finally, get him a door stop and tell him to prop his room open when he's in, a useful way of being sociable.

Sew on a button?
How to budget.
How to register with a GP?

To make sure he hangs his towel up after a shower, even if it's over the top of the bathroom door. That will it won't end up staying damp and smelling. Also, only buy bedding in similar colours to the clothes he wears. They will only do one lot of washing so everything goes in together. So if he mainly wears dark clothes, don't get a mainly white duvet

How to back up your work properly.

Contraception and healthy relationships.
What consent means and why it is so important.

He really needs to know how to manage time and priorities.
lso, how to protect his mental health! make sure he knows all the mental health help at uni.
ow to get burnt on stuff off a pan and not just chuck it away!

Empty the lint out of a Tumble dryer - DD just moved into a house share and no one had been doing it, she said it was close to catching fire.

Don’t spend the student loan all in one during Freshers Week.

Volunteer for whatever interests him, it’ll benefit him in many ways and especially in terms of finding employment.

Volunteer for whatever interests him, it’ll benefit him in many ways and especially in terms of finding employment.

Likewise that he should value his own opinions and standards and does not need to feel he should follow a crowd when his gut says no.

Make sure he knows how to budget and shop for food so he's never stuck and hungry and splurging on takeaway he can't afford. Can he cook an omelette?

Keep a note somewhere safe of bank account numbers, card details and providers and how to contact them to cancel in case of theft.

Knowing how long you can store perishable food and leftovers.

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

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 much and often they can take paracetamol and ibuprofen

Use the library rather than buy books - I don't think I bought a book at all during uni.
With this in mind, he needs to make sure he gets the relevant books out of the library as soon as he's given an assignment!!

Also that he shouldn’t panic if he gets in a state about the work or his attendance, almost anything can be fixed, it’s not the end of world at all

How to spot a spiked drink

Keeping calendar updated with due dates for assignments

Paying bills (phone and any others)

Fridge Management:

What goes in the fridge.
What doesn't go in the fridge. (You would not belive what some people, etc...)
How to wrap what goes in the fridge, eg half a sodding onion.
What goes vertical in the fridge, eg milk cannot be stored sideways.

Anything in the cleaning range mixed with bleach can release chlorine gas. Not a good idea.
Send him off with a tin of cake.
Make sure he knows the dangers of alcohol poisoning if he overdoes it in a session.
Safe sex please. Think we all say that!
How to cook lentils and pulses.
Join some groups.
Call Nightline if needed.
Keep his stuff safe - so many thefts from accommodation.
Keep a note of where to phone if his bank card gets nicked (unless he has a crafty app) and keep the number somewhere easily accessible but not with the card! If you call asap, they will refund anything taken out.
Don't tell his PIN to anyone. Ever.

Know how to recycle

www.facebook.com/groups/488235648182391/?ref=share

What to do if you’re ill at night or weekend I.e. how to use out of hours GP service and/or location of nearest walk in centre

Ooh thanks for compiling the list!

A couple of people have posted on the thread to say that these things are common sense or can easily be worked out with intelligence or a phone call home.

Of course none of these things are difficult, not at all. But, I would guess an extremely large proportion of things adults spend their time doing are actually these routine, mundane things that we take totally for granted. We don't remember learning them. But we did have to learn them. Either we watched our parents doing them or our parents taught us.

As a child I spent more time in close proximity to my mum because we had a small house, she didn't work and we didn't have mobile phones and computers so we did more stuff together plus she saw it as her job to teach me (a girl) how to do things around the house. You really do need an adult to show you these things simply in order to know they exist as jobs to be done. How would you know that food needs to be covered in a fridge and why? How would you know that if you move from living with your family to living with a group of strangers that someone might steal your milk?

You can google 'how to use a washing machine' and you might well do that because people know they exist but there are so many other things which are invisible to you as you grow up, because adults do them for you. Indeed as adults they are kind of invisible to us too because we do them without thinking about them.

Also, living in a shared flat or halls is something that many of us adults haven't done or so long ago that we don't remember or the social rules have changed. We need to share experiences as parents in order to pass on tips about this completely new world to our children.

Finally I doubt our children will listen when we tell them this stuff or they will impatiently tell us they already know it all. I think one of the major reasons for thinking this all through is so that we can feel involved in their new life in some way because it's really, really scary to think of them out there in the world in their own.

to everyone letting go of their babies this year!

Just don’t be surprised if they can do all this stuff anyway and don’t even discuss it with you.
You can feel a bit redundant.

Op also make sure he has allllll his immunisation boosters. Xx

You've reminded me of the two calls I received from DD during her first term in halls at uni. The first was for advice on ironing a shirt ... she had volunteered to iron one of the lads shirts in return for beer money but then realised she had never actually ironed a mans shirt 😂. We worked through that one on FaceTime with me actually getting my ironing board out. The second hysterical call was because there was a spider on her bedroom ceiling. When I'd stopped laughing I recommended finding a brave neighbour!!

30 years ago, when I went to uni, I walked into my allocated flat, and was greeted by “You must Bike, are you afraid of spiders?”. I then removed the spider and made some friends for life.

Removing spiders from baths is a very important life skill!