Teaching life skills

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My step daughter will be going to university next year. She has zero life skills. For example last week she asked me how to cut cheese and she’s never done it before. She doesn’t know how to make a cup of tea and has all meals made for her and delivered to her room. She doesn’t know how to work a washing machine etc. I am encouraging her father to start teaching her some life skills but he thinks she won’t be interested and says she will work it out. I think this is cruel and it would be far kinder to start teaching her so she knows how to do things before she goes to university next year. Any feedback? Experience? Views?

Ideally yes, some life skills ahead of university would be a good idea, but she would probably cope in the end. I shared a house at uni with a girl who's parents had run and lived above a pub and she had never been allowed in the kitchen as all meals came from the pub kitchen. She had zero kitchen skills or confidence at the beginning of the year, but we all helped her and she came out of the end of uni with a degree and the ability to cook for herself.

Take this as an opportunity to teach her the skills she's asked about. It could be a fun time. Although I think her DF and DM should be doing it.

Yes, teach her! She'll have enough to get to grips with at uni without having to pick up basic life skills. Also, if she doesn't know how to clean up after herself (especially in shared areas, such as kitchen and bathroom), she will be very unpopular with her flatmates.

Now is the time. No reason why she shouldn’t be doing her own laundry and getting involved in cooking over the summer.

Whether she’s interested isn’t really relevant, she needs to learn. I cleaned the bathroom this morning and it wasn’t because I was going to have such a lovely time doing it.

I’d also teach things like how to have a bit of a plan for meals and to how to do a supermarket shop, plus some budgeting skills.

I remember seeing a young lad who was clearly a new student, standing in front of all the washing powders looking completely lost. I wanted to give him a hug and tell him to just buy the one they had at home.

How is it all these clueless young people have never actually seen anyone make a cup of tea, or whatever it is they can't do, and noticed how they go about it? Are they all spectacularly unobservant or are they all glued to their phones and oblivious to what goes on around them?

DD shared halls with a few young people who brought prepped meals from home every weekend!
But Id give her a tour of the washing machine and basics of food hygiene before she went. Ensuring she doesn't poison herself is important.

I'm with you on this - I guess it's always been a thing that some people leave home with few life skills, but this seems extreme to me and far from being in the child's best interests to continue doing everything for her. I'm also a bit surprised that someone capable enough to be heading to uni couldn't mentally assemble the functions of a kitchen knife and a chopping board, and work out how to cut cheese, even if she's never actually cut cheese before. Is she unfamiliar with the concepts of kitchen knives and chopping boards, or does she not know where to find them...? What's the blocker here?

By that age I'm expecting my kids to be capable of running the home for a couple of weeks whilst we go on a mum and dad holiday and they holiday with with friends at other times. My 13 year old lad can work out what he needs to buy food-wise, cook meals, wash up, do laundry, and clean a bedroom and bathroom. (And chop cheese, make tea / coffee, etc.) It's not his responsibility to do all these things on a daily basis, but I do think that is is my (and my husband's) responsibility to ensure he gains life skills progressively, understands what it takes to maintain an orderly and organised home life, and is ready for successful independence when he leaves home.

I suppose it's similar to when you're a passenger in a car but somebody else is driving, and then when you arrive at your destination somebody asks if you came via the A30 or the A39 and you realise that, despite being awake throughout the journey, you have no clue...if you're not actually trying to learn how to make a cup of tea etc, you might not remember how long to steep the tea, how much milk to add, etc even if you've seen other people do it many times.

Definitely teach some some key life skills. Start with how to make a cup of tea (using teabag in a mug) and a cup of coffee (instant is fine).

Teach her how to use a washing machine but if she is going to be in halls, she might need to learn how to use an industrial one, so take her to a laundrette too. She also needs to know how to sort her own laundry into darks, lights, delicates, and not to overload the machine, nor, as a friend of mine reported - use a full wash cycle for a single pai of knickers!

How to make her bed.

3 basic meals she actually likes that have some nutritional value. Even if it it just filled pasta with pesto, beans on toast and cheese omlette.

Washing up, too. Make sure she scrubs things clean, rinses them properlyt and dries them off.

Get her to practise these things by cooking for the family, making cups of tea for everyone, helping with dishes, doig her own laundry sometimes.

Great opportunity for some stepmum bonding!!

It's nothing new, I did work experience at an office when I was doing a-levels and was asked at one point to make teas and coffees, I was totally clueless despite actually drinking tea practically all my life. This was almost 30 years ago. I suppose it's a sort of learned helplessness, I never thought to learn because someone always did it for me! Anyway I was very embarrassed so I do think it's better to learn, not because she won't cope - I did, I obviously make my own tea and coffee now and am even in charge of a small human! - but because it would have saved a lot of ineptitude on my part.

Completely agree with you. All of my children were equipped with life skills before they headed off to university. She is very lazy and unfortunately both parents pander to her and as a result she has never learned how to do anything. I doubt food hygiene (which if vital I don’t want her to poison herself) is an area she has no understanding of. Cleaning up after herself (judging by her bedroom and bathroom) is non existent and as another poster helpfully pointed out will not ingratiate herself to fellow housemates. It’s not my place to teach her (she’s rarely out of her room) but I do worry about her and wish dad would step up. It’s just very sad.

But could you say - before you go to uni, do you want to make a short list of essential life skills, like making cups of tea and coffee, making a bed, doing a washload, and a couple of very easy recipes? I'm happy to help show you the basics.

See what she says. Just putting the idea in her head will help.

And I'd say to her dad that uni is stressful enough without feeling you have to work out how to make your own bed or brew your first cup of tea. These are easily learned before she goes. if he gets off his arse to teach her

How are almost 18 year olds getting to that age with no ability to do jobs for themselves?

My kids are 13 and 16. We are very busy so they are quite spolit and don't have any regular chores as such, and often get meals made for them, washing done for them. However, both have been capable of making a meal, going to the shop, catching a bus or a train, putting a wash on, changing bed sheets and even cleaning a loo (badly) for some time. The older one can also mow the lawn. Both have bank cards and can manage money. This weekend dd has washed her own PE kit for school and been to the shop for me. Ds cooked them both dinner last night when we were out. Both have made some effort at tidying their rooms.

You need to tell your Dh this isn't about being interested in something, this is essential to her not giving herself food poisoning because she doesn't know how to prepare and store food.

He is being completely lazy and letting her down, he needs to teach her and if he doesn't you should. I think this might be the point to start her with a clean bedroom and bathroom. It is also incredibly disrespectful to treat rooms like that.

I suppose it's similar to when you're a passenger in a car but somebody else is driving, and then when you arrive at your destination somebody asks if you came via the A30 or the A39 and you realise that, despite being awake throughout the journey, you have no clue

I probably would know, actually, because when I was in my teens on family holidays I was the one who looked at the map and planned the route to wherever we were going!

But I don't understand how someone can reach the age of 17 or so never having made themselves a cup of tea and a cheese sandwich.

Is she definitely NT? People, who are NT might. It will be much mire difficult if she is ND. Moving out is hard enough. Why would he set her up to fail? My dd has zero interest. I just downed tools with the washing and told her I would help to show her, but I wasn’t doing it any longer. I appreciate that’s more difficult with 2 households.

How can you respect a father who let it happen? That's why I've been single for years, my fanny shuts like a clam when I date men who are useless fathers.

Why is someone delivering meals to her room ?
Is this at both houses ?

How can anyone get to late teens with zero skills in terms of looking after themselves.
Yes, we've all met someone who has never been shown how to cook / made to practice skills, but not able to slice cheese or make a drink ?

It used to be considered part of parenting to teach children (or at least teens) the basics of cooking and cleaning. Now it's considered the equivalent of backseat driving??

Presumably if she's neurodiverse, it's all the more important to teach her skills that she may not just pick up from being in the kitchen?

It still is - as you will see from my first post, I've said that this SD should be taught these skills!

But in the extract above, I was responding to a poster who couldn't understand how a teen could be around other people making cups of tea etc (but not explicitly teaching these skills to the teen) and not pick up the techniques. I was just observing that I think it's quite easy for teens (especially if they're the dreamy/chatty/fidgety types) to not really notice what mum and dad are doing. That's why they need to be taught!

It used to be considered part of parenting to teach children (or at least teens) the basics of cooking and cleaning. Now it's considered the equivalent of backseat driving??

Who said anything about backseat driving?

If she doesn’t know already, how to order a round of drinks in a pub and how to split the bill for a meal out. I taught life skills in a boarding school, and was shocked that kids who went out often with parents had no idea how to do those things. Also basic safety/ security stuff - how to say ‘no’ and mean it, not to carry a plastic card on a night out, what to do if you get drunk (and how to treat a hangover).