to ask you what you haven't explicitly spelled out to your kids and realised they don't know how to do?

[cremantsupernova]

There are lots of threads on MN about what your kids need to be able to do by the time they leave home (drive/life admin/budget/cook etc) in addition to school basics.
But what about the rest of it. Mine are generally kind and polite and usually remember pleases and thank yous
I was with one of my DC the other day and they ran ahead through a door and let it shut in the person behind's face. And I realised that I prob haven't stopped and told them that this is what you do.
Made me worry what else i haven't told them -
Any other examples?

To use a cash point.

My DS had used one to take his £10 pocket money out sometimes.

Then he seemed to take forever when he wanted to withdraw £80. He used the machine x 8 times as didn’t know you could or how to change the amount to withdraw. 😝

I realised i hadn’t told my DS you close your eyes when trying to get to sleep. He was always a rubbish sleeper and when he was maybe 6 he was complaining of having sore eyes in bed. I was trying to work out what was wrong and realised he was trying to get to sleep WITH HIS EYES OPEN 😳! I had cuddled him to sleep loads before that but must have had my own eyes closed (probably because I was knackered from his awful sleep!) and never realised.

This. I was teaching dc7 about this and let him go ahead to use the crossing himself when some twat decided to ignore the red light and small boy on the crossing. He was traumatised. It was on the other side if the road to where he was but he screamed and still sometimes mentions it. He does not do crossing main roads alone 🙈

As a parent I'm so appreciative of people who do this especially when you're probably in a hurry and would cross when the road is empty other times.

my toddler old is a runner and super speedy but despite running away from me (and at 8m pregnant I can't run fast after her like I used to) she will wait at the green man if she gets to a road, often because she sees that everybody waits at the green man.

I asked DS (11) to make the gravy using Bisto and showed him the measuring jug for the water etc

Forgot to mention the "boiling" water so he made it with cold and wondered why it wouldn't mix very well!

Um....Mum??

I got my first car at 20 and didn't know you had to MOT a car every year 🙈

I've never really "shown" DS how to tidy up.
I just thought he'd figure it out for himself.
He's 8 now and simply CANNOT tidy up after himself.

This thread has made me realize he also doesn't know his home phone number, I'm sure I knew mine when I was 8.

We dont have a home number anymore.

So instead of a 6 figure number.

They would have to learn an 11 figure mobile number.

Another green man one - I'd told DC (more than once I'm sure) to look out for emergency vehicles and wait, and that they are allowed to go the wrong way so be careful. Dd age 12 nearly walked right out in front of a police car with the siren going because the green man came on and it was a one way junction so she was only looking one way. Luckily I was there to pull her back. She's not heard the end of it since.

I was going to say this.
I had to tell my adult son where a stamp went.

Oh and sell by dates on food. He'd shopped, cooked, put groceries away etc, but after his first week at uni he told me he'd had to throw some meat out as it went past it's use by date. It occurred to me that I was just checking the dates, freezing some stuff etc without thinking anything more of it. I realised I hadn't explained it all to him. No biggy, he learnt quickly.

DS2 (14) is a work in progress - learning that it's not fairies that make the water hot, fill the fridge, empty the bins etc. With the teenage brain it can take time for it to sink in.

Didn't even occur to my tween to close the front door when she went out last while everyone else was already in the car. I got home to a wide open front door 🤦🏽‍♀️. Didn't even occur to me she wouldn't close and lock it. So now if she's last out I'm standing and waiting so she can practice closing and locking the door.

My 4 Yr dd shouts 'that's naughty' when people cross on the red man 😆

A couple of weeks ago my 8 year old had a cold and was constantly sniffing. I told her to go and blow her nose, she said she didn't know how. I realised it was her first cold in years so I had to show her how to do it.

We use buses a lot and have noticed a real lack of bus etiquette amongst secondary school kids. I'm sure some of them are just rude and selfish but I also think a lot of them have probably never travelled on buses with their parents and it really doesn't occur to them to offer their seats to elderly people/not play music out loud, etc.

Oh so many things!!

They need 11 digits for a landline if calling from a mobile anyway because they have to add the area code. We do phone numbers with the Beavers and they grasp it easier than the Cubs.

They are really unlikely to ever use a public phonebox and most of them wouldnt have a clue what a landline is.

My daughter learnt my number as one of our Beavers she still knows it and can reel it off quicker than I can and she is a Scout now. Her brothers can remember it to, even though they apparently can't recall where shoes and bags go when he takes them off or how to flush the toilet without daily reminders.

I showed both dds (now long grown up) more than once, how to stitch a button on, and how to turn up a hem (properly). But they still CBA so will leave a pair of trousers that need a few inches of hem turned up languishing for ever in the wardrobe.
WTF they ever learned in a whole year of needlework at school, I don’t know.

My son in law, OTOH, is very adept at stitching on a shirt button, if needed.

Did was in year 6 and wanted to get the bus to the next town with a friend.

She rang me a couple of hours later saying they got back on the bus but didn’t recognise where they were …. it hadn’t crossed my mind to tell to her to cross the road to get the bus back 😁

Good "herding" instincts.

My mum has always been crap at generally being aware of the size of her current group and roughly where everyone is/their current state. Cue lots of complaints that we 'wander off'.

Having a good sense of keeping in touch with the people you're out with is great for safety when out clubbing.

When DS was younger I had a relative with children of the same age repeatedly tell me how ‘lucky’ I was to have such a well mannered child. She even suggested that if her DC spent more time with him that the manners would ‘rub off’ on them. It had never occurred to her that these things need to be taught (and re taught and reminded and modelled).

mere same here. If there's kids around we always wait for the green man to set a good example.

On country roads with no pavements you need to look at how the road bends rather than just walk on the right every time.
There are quite a few roads near me that walking on the right puts you in a hugely vulnerable position and you are lucky not to get flattened if you happen to meet a car on a tight bend where they are hugging the inside.
Reflective clothing of some sort is a must anywhere without pavements though. It’s like spotting ninjas in the dark most days.

Our ds10 kept inexplicably walking backwards in a busy supermarket yesterday obviously then bumping into people

Yes, this is the problem now. Also we all (adults and teens) have numbers saved in our phones so rarely need to say or dial them. I'm sure I never went out of my way to memorise numbers back in the day, but by using them all the time I learnt them. But now I don't know my kids' numbers.

My 17 year old left her phone at home the other day and spent the day trying to remember my mobile number. She complained that the only number she knew by heart was our landline which we had cut off a few months ago.

I'm sure there's loads of basic life skills I've failed to teach my kids.

Thank you so much.