To think that too many parents don't equip there older teens for adult life.

[RedHillSunsets]

DD is awaiting her A-level results and should start uni in September. Some of her friends have already been in uni for a year. I left home at 18 to train as a nurse (pre uni courses) and had been taught to cook, budget and sort things out for myself in readiness for entering the adult world.
I have tried to ensure that DD is also prepared. She can drive, cook, and budget and has a current account, savings account, and LISA. She has had a part-time job since she was 15 and plans to continue working through uni as the job is in a field related to her degree. We discuss things like mortgages, income tax, NI, loans, credit cards, bills, and insurance as I think financial education is so important.
It shocks me how little financial awareness and basic life skills many of her peers have.

Did your parents teach you the life skills you needed and will you pass them on to your children?

The OPs thread is about equipping them with the financial education to make good financial decisions.

You don’t need a gap year to learn independence. What mollycoddling. You learn on the job as we all did- and survived.

Having a gap year is mollycoddling @Strawbag6364 ?
I have heard it all now

DD was unsuccessful in applying for medicine (achieved the grades though) and didn't want to do the alternative that she was offered. She took a gap year to reconsider what she wanted to do, visited a few more universities, worked, travelled and volunteered.

She absolutely was not mollycoddled. She grew up and learned independence without being hampered by studying for A levels.

😂 sadly mine have not obtained the tidying skill

“It's part of being a parent to teach our DC to be independent. If they aren't ready to look after themselves they need a gap year to grow up before going to university.“

Needing a gap year (which for many is a glorified holiday) due to apparently not being independent enough to be ready to live in the real world is mollycoddling.

Learning on the hoof is the best way and what we all did back in the day before teens apparently need to be shown how to do everything.

Depends on where you live. In rural areas, it can be vital. Public transport isn't always an option. We are not rich but having dd able to drive has made such a difference to us as a family, we had to budget carefully to afford lessons and insurance though!

@Strawbag6364 you seem to think that all gap year young people are wealthy and use their parents' money to travel round the world. This is absolutely not the case for us.

I most definitely did not mollycoddle DD during her gap year. She had just turned 18 (summer birthday) and didn't want to rush into a university degree she didn't want to do, which I suggest is a mature decision rather than going to university because all her friends did. She made a measured decision during her gap year as to what she wanted to do, and she did so - very successfully.

She then found herself a job, continued with her volunteering, visited friends at university, went interrailing and worked at a music festival before going to university.

I still maintain that some young people are not ready to leave home and be independent, and providing them with the tools to do so during a gap year is not mollycoddling.

You seem to come from the school of hard knocks - sink or swim. Many swim, but why would you set someone up to fail if it is very clear that they are going to sink?

I am no longer on the WIWIKAU Facebook page, but I have read some pretty distressing stories from parents of DC who didn't and couldn't "just get on with it".

Loads of students dropped out last year because the default expectation was to go to university straight from school when it was clear that they weren't ready or not even suited to higher education.

My younger son used to moan incessantly when he was a teenager about 'having' to cook his own meals and do his own washing.

When he got to university he told me he was one of the few who knew how to make a meal from scratch and he had to instruct many of his fellow flatmates on how to wash their clothes. For years I had to put up with his complaining, but he FINALLY got my point!

Well it is mollycoddling and a luxury many can’t afford to boot.

Why are current days teens so delicate they can’t leave home at 18 without mum hand holding them and teaching them how to survive for a year before? 18 years olds have survived for generations leaving home at 18 and learning as they go.

Not being suited to higher education is a whole other issue

I think telling young people they “aren’t ready” is incredibly damaging too.

I knew I would be accused of being smug! I have a great relationship with dd, I'm very proud of her and will always support her.
My other dc will never be able to live independently due to disability, needs constant supervision and can't do anything alone.

Plenty dropped out years ago and fewer went to university anyway. My DM was born in 1939 and didn't leave home until she got married to my dad aged 22. It wasn't routine to be booted out of the door at 18 sixty years ago let alone now. And if people were it's not necessarily a marker for great parenting.

Some people always think the generations below them are wrong or mollycoddled in some way. To think such a way just means you are an out of touch old fart, whatever age you are, and going towards becoming a boring old curmudgeon. Having had all this behaviour towards me when I was younger I resolved never to go down that road.

@Strawbag6364 I don't know what I can say to you to convince you that a young person having a gap year is not mollycoddling them.

I think I detect a little bit of jealousy here.

DD is a confident, independent and well balanced young lady, who after graduating with a first in a STEM degree stayed at her university city and walked straight into a job (her work experience during her gap year helped a lot). She flat shared and then lived on her own. She knows how to "adult" - deal with untilities companies, council tax, rental agents, deal with conflict at work etc. She knew how to cook, budget and use a washing machine while she was at school.

And no-one tells their DC they aren't ready to go to university.

Its the modern day equivalent of the Grand Tour, only available to the privileged.

Still the same, the rest of us were working multiple jobs and needed to get on in life to pay the bills!

I really cringe when I hear about gap years

we kids always had to accompany our mum to the weekly shop and help with carrying it all back (1970s so no deliveries)

😂 I swear my arms are 2" longer than todays kids as I helped carry home a weekly shop for a family of 7 on the bus every week! 5 or 6 carrier bags in each hand and those plastic bag handles really dug in! Walking from the bus stop to home having to stop every few feet to adjust them so they didn't hurt.

Old traditional family setup so it was only mum, younger dsis and me that did the shop, because dsis was 4 years younger I had to carry a lot more! dh and dbros got to sit around at home, or tinker with cars or occasionally do DIY! So all my brothers are very handy with cars and DIY!

Ah, the (rose tinted) good ole days!

Agree. We live in a village that has no public transport whatsoever. Most of the kids in our area learn to drive as soon as they turn 17 one way or another. Many of my DC's friends from farming familes could drive well before they were 17 in fact and took their tests soon after their birthdays. I can't think of any young people in our village who are over 18 and can't drive. Despite the expense, when the alternative is being permanently on duty as taxi driver most parents are at least as keen as their offspring that they learn early.
I grew up in an urban area, went to University in a big city and didn't learn to drive until I was in my mid 20s - there was simply no need. But it's been driving lessons starting on the 17th birthday for my own children as life is quite different here. Public transport was a new experience for my DC when they went to University and I'm sure my DD's friends were amused by the fact she wasn't familiar with bus timetables. She's really good at driving on single track roads and in snow though. Neither is "better" they just reflect different life experiences.

It was a mixed bag. I did learn that if you want something you have to work for it. That came from studying hard and having part time jobs. Pocket money for fun wasn't freely given. I think that was probably the most important lesson I needed.

However, a tutor at sixth form taught me how to make pasta! I remember at university seeing someone wiping mushrooms with kitchen roll and it was learning to cook in the moment. I ate a lot of pasta.

I think teaching basic meals, how to budget, savings and investing is really important.

From age 12 my pocket money I had to buy all clothes (no uniform school) and toiletries in addition to fun stuff m, this really helped me learn. My parents aren’t very good cooks but I did a cookery course alongside equivalent of Alevels when I was 16, only by chance really I had to fill up my timetable. it was just basic meals a different one each week and it gave me fantastic grounding. Both these really helped me. And plan to do similar with my kids

Jealousy? Why would I be jealous?

I’m simply replying to the declaration that if not ready to leave home 18 year olds need a gap year to be taught how to adult. That’s ridiculous and mollycoddling.

I'd be amazed if the majority of people living in rural areas rely on public transport, it doesnt exist there!!

I really cringe when I hear about gap years

@soupfiend There are gap years where DC work, and gap yahs where the overprivileged get travel funded by their wealthy parents. DD comes under my first definition (besides, she needed to look at other university courses and not make a rushed decision)

I’m simply replying to the declaration that if not ready to leave home 18 year olds need a gap year to be taught how to adult. That’s ridiculous and mollycoddling.

I'm inclined to agree with @MrHarleyQuin

You do you, and I'll do me and be proud of what DD has achieved.
You do realise that not all 18 year olds are mature responsible adults, don't you?

Someone recently was asking if she needed to label her adult child’s cooking stuff for university.

So I’d say at least some people do not.

i wouldn’t say my parents taught me as such - I absorbed a lot of it via a kind of osmosis of watching them. They did teach me about money and saving.

A lot of it I was intelligent enough to work out with some trial and error too - I often think people don’t learn until they DO - which when parents step in to do it for them it does the kids a great disservice.

Travelling and working is not necessarily just for the privileged and well off. My friend did it in South East Asia after university for years and came from a very ordinary not very well off working class background.

I know!

The idea that lounging on Kho Samui on a round the world ticket paid for by bank of mum and dad somehow prepares you better for life is ridiculous. Nothing better than learning the hard way that spreading out your terms expenses is crucial alongside keeping on top of washing unless you want to be surviving on beans and wearing musty knickers.

I also can’t say as I was ever “taught” to do laundry.

I did manage to read the instructions on the packet of laundry power, check the settings of the machine etc though so I did just fine.