Shouldn't parents be teaching freshers life skills before university?

[RampantIvy]

I am still on the WIWIKAU Facebook page as DD is a post grad student.

I keep reading posts from parents of freshers students worrying about how their student DC are going to manage cooking, laundry and other life skills.

Isn't it our job to teach them those skills? Why on earth haven't these parents done so?

I admit to challenging one parent in the past about this and got my post deleted 😁

This is just as weird in the opposite way. Our kids are literally A Level students + 6 weeks! It’s a weird British thing to want to make them tough and so independent that they don’t want to see their family.

I think it’s absolutely fine for some parents/kids to still have a close relationship, see them regularly and ocassionally pop to see them for lunch, shopping etc. if they’ve got the time and energy to do it, why not? Why is it such a bad thing to want to support a homesick child by visiting them? They’re not identikit teenagers who need to be left until Christmas. Some will thrive doing that but others just need a little bit of extra hand holding and that’s also perfectly fine. If my child was upset and needed me, I’d go to the moon, never mind Edinburgh.

We had a trip to see DD two weeks after she started she wasn't homesick at all but we only live 45 minutes away so just had a nice day with her, and her siblings got to see where she was living. It would be more strange to not see her for 10 weeks when we are so close. DH used to work at the University where she now studies so they were bonding over that.

I grew up on a Scottish Island and so couldn't go home during term time at Uni because of the cost. DH stayed at home as an undergraduate (as did his brother and sister). We had very different experiences as undergraduates and he was shockingly useless at looking after himself as a postgraduate student (when I met him). I taught him how to cook and budget etc. I think DD's experience of living away from home but being close enough to easily visit is probably the best.

Several of my DDs school friends at uni appear unable to use public transport, there is a good direct train service from our town to DD's uni city, it takes 2 hours. Yet a dad of a friend going to the same uni is literally driving all the way there and back (5+ hour round trip) several weekends a term to transport the friend home for a couple of nights. He works long hours too. Madness in my view. Though DD has had more than 1 lift, so she also benefits! I simply wouldn't do that drive, apart from taking all her things down at the start of the year and hauling them back at the end.

DD was used to local train travel, but during her gap year she travelled to visit friends in England and Scotland by train, then went interrailing with her boyfriend. By the time she went to university she could book a ticket on the Trainline app quicker than she could say "I'll book a ticket".

Admittedly, she was nervous about travelling to Glasgow on her own the first time she did it, but she was fine after that.

Different people have different attitudes to driving. I know some people who enjoy it. I don’t enjoy it particularly but I wouldn’t limit a two-and a half hour trip each way just to the start and end of the year. Since my MIL can no longer manage us staying over we drive it in a day many times a year to see her.

Scottish students are generally very familiar with public transport as buses are free for under 22s. My DC have travelled all over by bus on their own. They would all prefer to be given lifts in the car though.

DD got free bus travel to and from school, but that was it. Our buses only go between the two nearest towns, but not between the villages so I did used to have to give DD a lift to her friend's house two villages away, but if they were meeting in town or going to the shopping mall she just got a train.

DD has only occasionally taken public transport before going to Uni (we live walking distance from school/college/town centre) but appears to have coped with the metro system in her university town. Although she did say she needed to talk to her Dad about how to buy a railcard 🙄. I pointed out it was googleable.

Our buses are similar - we a partway for a bus starting a couple of towns away heading towards a bigger town. It takes about 40 mins on the bus to reach the train station or the main bus station from where they can travel all over (changing buses or trains as necessary)

😂😂😂I’m sure she knew that! I suspect she was hoping he’d offer to pay for it 😂😂

I get ‘request for advice’ on purchases from my DC too - basically they are dropping heavy hints about buying it for them 😂

Newcastle?