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?

I handed my ds a tin opener and asked him to open a tin for me and I might has well have asked him to land a plane.
I gave him a couple of minutes to see if he could work it out and he couldn't and nor could his older brother. Tin openers aren't very self explanatory and definitely have to be demoed

In some parts of the US buses don't have buttons, but instead there's a horizontal rope that hangs along the inside of the bus (stretched along the length of the window on either side but not stretched taught) and you grab the rope and pull it down slightly to activate the stop sign.

Great thread, will be making notes!!

this reminds me of my teens, we moved to a sunny island in the Indian ocean: to get off the bus you have to clap your hands to tell the driver!

I love the idea of a brand new driver merrily driving along without stopping, feeling so chuffed at how furiously people are keen to show their admiration of their driving skills

@AppleCrispMacchiato
In some parts of the US buses don't have buttons, but instead there's a horizontal rope that hangs along the inside of the bus (stretched along the length of the window on either side but not stretched taught) and you grab the rope and pull it down slightly to activate the stop sign.
We had these in London up to the 1970s/80s. I once saw a man pull the string and it broke and he ended up on the floor. Being about 13 at the time, I thought it was hilarious

One of my friends was staying at my parents house and was very polite and helpful. she stayed over frequently so treated more like family. She offered to help with the washing and just put things in a heap in the airing cupboard, her parents always used a tumble dryer so she didn't think about laying them out.

A bit tmi, so I apologise in advance, but DS15 wasn't aware of how to be sick 😩He had a reaction to something he ate a few months ago and although he had the instinct to run to the bathroom, he just let go generally, and didn't know that the toilet was the thing to aim for. He'd never thrown up since he was about 3 and it just never occurred to me to tell him what to do 😖

Surely that's instinct though?
I can understand not realising he was going to be sick and that it can go from the saliva in your mouth to upchucking pretty quickly, but to not consider that it goes down the loo....I think that's unusual.

That said, I will check with DS this evening, this thread has shown us that we shouldn't be surprised at anything!

I think the most important skill you can teach kids is observation of the world around them, in the expectation they pay attention and are able to work things out for themselves when navigating something new.

DSS (18) has absolutely no curiosity at anything outside his interests despite multiple attempts at trying to show him something it bounces off like his brain is waterproof or something. Then the first time he has to do something in his own (train journey) he panics despite years of “look dss, this is the ticket machine, do you want to press the buttons, what platform do you see listed on the screens, how do we find the platform, where shall we stand etc etc etc”.

i couldn’t wait to do stuff on my own when I was a teenager but judging by DSS some just appear to drift along expecting the fairies to wave their wand (as per a pp) and everything just magically happens.

I literally am doing this.

Love the mobile number as your iPad password idea - genius. Which reminds me, us parents need to learn our teens' mobile numbers off by heart too.

I normally get a bowl ready.

But will make sure they know it gets emptied into the toilet.

My dd finds it really difficult to concentrate and focus, I think she'll struggle unless she gets thrown into the deep end and actually has to do it herself.

The rest of the time no matter how much you explain things to her- it's sometimes like talking to a wall.

Washing up. We've always had a dishwasher so the kids have never learnt how to wash up by hand. They'll figure it out when they go to uni.

seriously a 3 yr old??
My almost 3 yr old was playing with a tape measure the other day, I asked her how tall I was and she said "sixty eight and 2 O clock" 😂
But my phone number is printed on stickers in her shoes and coat!

Sorry that was to @Ittastesvile

On the first day as an office junior as a nervous 16 year old (there's a job title that probably has vanished now!) I was asked to make a number of copies of a document.

I'd been shown how to make a copy; put the document here, close the lid and press that button.

So I stood there carefully pressing the button umpteen times until someone saw what I was doing and while laughing, showed me the (hidden under a flap) buttons to select the number of copies.

I was so embarrassed that I really wanted to just go home crying but the lovely colleague took me under her wing and and took time out to run through my tasks so she knew that I knew what was expected. She wasn't the person training me either. The person training me had done a 10 minute verbal diarrhoea talk and then left me on my own.

How to really clean.

My tween asked me what the yellow dish cloth is ACTUALLY used for and I realised I needed to explain that you spray the surface, wet it a little and then scrub or rub at the end of cooking/washing dishes etc to make sure that the surface was clean.

Same goes for mopping. I realised I had to teach the motion, how to fill the mop bucket and rinse it out, how to clean all of the bits that need to be brushed away before you mop etc.

Then again I remember learning how to mop from my male cousin when I was about 6 years old who taught me “industry” tricks from his shift at a fast food restaurant haha (before my mum showed me later on in life).

I thought the fact that she watched me clean and often helps with washing dishes etc meant she knew it all.

I remember these from the 70s/very early 80s in Sydney too. I also remember keeping an eye open to see which kind of bus I was going to catch to school in the morning.

I'm enjoying this thread though, mine are both at uni and over the holidays this would be a good discussion topic to bring up particularly for the dozy younger one ... Might start by asking the eldest what she discovered she didn't know when she went on her gap year!

Fair enough. We've seen so many people over the last few years walking on the left on largely straight country lanes that we actually googled to see if we'd been getting it wrong our whole lives!

@Orangeandgold
My tween asked me what the yellow dish cloth is ACTUALLY used for and I realised I needed to explain that you spray the surface, wet it a little and then scrub or rub at the end of cooking/washing dishes etc to make sure that the surface was clean.

Sorry. I have no idea what any of this means?

This thread has reminded me of a time when I was about 8 or 9 and my parents asked me to put the kettle on (this was in the days of stovetop kettles, before electric jugs were commonplace). They were both quite derisive when I admitted I didn’t know how to do it, and I honestly felt ashamed. It wasn’t until years later that I realised the fault lay with my parents, not me!

It stuck with me, and I try to be mindful of it when my own kids ask me how to do something.

Not my kids, but me.

My parents never showed me how to make tea. They didn't drink it and so I made it to 16 without ever needing to make it. Then I had to make it at work for a customer...put the tea bag straight into the kettle.

Felt rather stupid, but it wasn't exactly my fault.

This happened to me, when I was about 10, my Dad asked me to make him and my Mum a cup of coffee (they were divorced, she was visiting). I told him I didn't know how and he hit the roof asking how I could've made it to 10 without knowing how to make a coffee. Maybe because I didn't drink the bloody stuff and nobody had ever asked me to make one before? I lived most of the week with Mum, she'd taught me to make hot chocolate because I drank that but she made her own coffee's and just didn't ask.

My nephew is 11 and asked me the difference between a vegetarian and a vegan the other week, I was a bit surprised he didn't know by his age but wouldn't occur to me to be arsey about it, I just told him. You don't know until you know!

According to my mechanic, pulling it up making a horrible noise is the correct way, apparently if you lift it with the button pushed in you can over stretch the handbrake cable and damage it.

I don’t think that’s a bad thing! When I grew up almost every adult smoked so we saw them lighting matches from when we were toddlers. Not being a candle enthusiast, the only time I light a match is on the rare occasions that the pilot light on my boiler goes out.