How much do you prepare your kids for life before they leave home?

[Hikergirl]

Hikergirl.... true!!! to a point.
But, the thing is, that there are those, like those menioned here, that when mommy-servant isn't there, think that they are entitled, and somebody else WILL have to be there, to quote examples here, 'make that bed correctly', iron those items needed for that event or interview'.
See this WAY too often.

There are givers, and there are takers (the entitled).
And this is not always determined by the parenting.

They will either end up lonely and living in a mess, or there will be someone out there who is willing to take care of them
And I totally agree with the bolded, sometimes it is just how people are, regardless of how they were raised and what they were taught, and they aren't going to change.
All I can do is warn my kids to stay far away from them

 

[mjkacmom]

Why required in colllege????
Why not part of a mandatory Life-Skills class for Seniors in High School?
Here, they are too busy being worried that every student take and pass classes like Trig and Calculus.

I’d rather the teachers teach trig and let me teach life skills (I can’t do trig). I’ll teach cooking, cleaning, addressing an envelope, depositing a paycheck, using a can opener, getting prescriptions filled, paying a parking ticket...

 

[luvsJack]

Some kids get to college age and they just stop doing stuff they know how to do. Like making the bed. And if they don’t care if they sleep without sheets why should anyone else?

Now the eating raw chicken is a bit concerning. I mean has she been living under a rock for 18 years to not know chicken has to be fully cooked?

Washing clothes-Dd knows how to do it, she knows how to separate and the recommended temps and all of that. She just throws everything but jeans into one load and washes it all in cold water. She ain’t hurting her clothes and she is fine with it so I just silently roll my eyes and let her go. I did convince her not to wash her winter sweaters in all that! But someday when she decides, she will go back to doing it correctly. I figure the first time her bf’s white socks all turn pink will be the turning point lol.

 

[cabanafrau]

Such an appropriate topic at a time when so many have just headed off to college.

My personal philosophy about raising kids is they should constantly be given as much independence and self sufficiency as they can handle at every age. Partially it's about what I think is ultimately best for them, partially it's been an underlying anxiety as a parent about my kids needing to be able to manage and thrive if I was hit by a bus tomorrow. After listening to my oldest daughter's experiences when she went off to university and taking in what I know from friends and family about their kids experiences doing the same I'm pretty relieved I pushed my daughters hard.

My oldest daughter has a good friend and former college roommate who has taken some pretty unnecessary hard knocks along the way because her mother actually took deliberate steps to stifle her knowledge about basic lifeskills due to mom's psychological disorders. My daughter did not realize when they shared a dorm room that her friend wasn't skipping out on all cleaning tasks because of laziness. She legitimately had no idea how to do the most basic things and was embarrassed and just avoided everything outright. When they were later roommates in a house together and her friend realized she was facing an internship living out of state on her own for the summer she finally decided to ask how to do various things -- or in some cases what it was that actually needed to be done altogether. My daughter was pretty shocked at how much confidence her friend gained once she was able to manage things for herself. It changed so many things in her life -- she's living completely independently across the country today and is thriving in her own place with a nice start to her career and has built a nice friend network in her new hometown.

 

[firefly_ris]

Washing clothes-Dd knows how to do it, she knows how to separate and the recommended temps and all of that. She just throws everything but jeans into one load and washes it all in cold water. She ain’t hurting her clothes and she is fine with it so I just silently roll my eyes and let her go. I did convince her not to wash her winter sweaters in all that! But someday when she decides, she will go back to doing it correctly. I figure the first time her bf’s white socks all turn pink will be the turning point lol.

We're a family of 5 so I do laundry... um... constantly.... and I also throw basically everything together, in cold water, including my winter sweaters (winter is like 5 1/2 months long here so I have quite a bit - a lot of them hang or lay flat to dry though). The only things I separate are towels and sheets and do those in warm or hot water, but even that doesn't always happen depending on how rushed I am. My mom would have a conniption if she watched me do my laundry though, LOL. I was taught to separate everything, do lingerie bags, etc. Now it's just a cold water free-for-all!

 

[NYCgrrl]

Did the best I knew how to with my sons. They did laundry by the age of 9 or 10, cleaned their bedroom (gosh the stuff I found behind the radiators when they moved out!?!), helped me polish the hardwood floors seasonally just like I did as a child (wear clean cotton tube socks, pull out the can of Butchers' Wax, put on the music and flyyy from one corner of the room to the other) and washed the ceilings when they insisted on playing basketball in the house-told you not to do that.
They helped prep veggies, made salads, set the table and washed the dishes ( I dunno why I just don't like dishwashers even when I had one excepting during the holiday entertaining season when it was a boon). Have the luxury of your own bathroom? Then it's your's to clean too. Manage your allowance, save the money various relatives gave you and puhleese don't ask me for an advance because I'm going to grill you as if you were in a bank.

I've had mixed results. They all seem to know how to clean and do basic cooking but regularly fail at the money managing part. I'd die of shame before asking my parents or grandparents to lend/give me money but apparently they are culturally and generationally different for me. Sighhhhhhhh.

 

[cabanafrau]

I still harass my husband about his college laundry philosophy -- but I used Cheer. No, that's all temperature, NOT everything altogether. He is banned to this day from washing anything but sheets or towels.

Younger daughter just recently took off for university after doing community college. She went off supplied just like her sister -- lingerie bags, check; drying rack, check. Her sister recommended she pick up a salad spinner to wash her bras because generally community washers tend to damage them.

 

[design_mom]

I've got a senior and a freshman. Both kids can do their own laundry, clean a bathroom, run the vacuum, load/unload the dishwasher, etc. The senior can cook -- mostly simple things -- but he could get by. The younger helps prep veggies and can make cookies, but doesn't seem very interested in cooking anything else... but she's got a few years.

DS can iron -- but he doesn't do a particularly great job. I guess it will come with practice. He has recently found the magic of the clothes steamer and that has been a motivation to hang his clothes up rather than shove them in a drawer (hanging wrinkles can often be steamed out... if it's been shoved in a drawer, it's going to need the power of the iron.) He can pump gas, but doesn't not know a lot about car nor home maintenance. (But, heck, sometimes I still call my dad asking "How do you...?" and I'm 46!) I can totally see DS being the kid who would sleep on the bare mattress under a blanket (yuck!) or won't ever make his bed. It won't be because he doesn't know how to make a bed. He just doesn't care about that... he's not lazy about EVERYTHING, but he's lazy about that.

I've got a few more years to train DD. But I think she'll be OK.

 

[tvguy]

You can tell them, and you can show them by leading your life the way they should lead their's.
However, sometimes they don't listen and have to learn from their mistakes.

We told our kids we did not want them working during the school year when they were in College, and that we would cover all their expenses. DD listened. DS, under pressure from a girlfriend, got a part time job because the girlfriend thought he shouldn't be dependent on his parents. His grades slipped. He had to go to school an additional year because of that. His job paid him $9,000. The additional year of college tuition and room and board cost his mom and I $50,000. I just looked at him and said "we could have given you $9,000 and saved $41,000"

 

[china mom]

All of these household skills are important but I don't remember being taught so much as left to figure it out myself. My passion is teaching kids about finances. I have a kid in my office - a really good kid. He is 21 and is in a financial hole so deep that he is really struggling to dig his way out of it. He landed in a very well paying job for a 21 year old with a HS diploma. But, when he was younger, he got himself into credit card debt and bought a new car before paying off the old one. He told me that between car insurance and car payment, he is paying $800 a month just to have the car.

He has seen the light and now has Ramen noodles and scrambled eggs fro lunch every day.

I have three brothers and each one of them has been or is a hot freakin' mess when it comes to money.

I preach finances to my children all the time. even when I can afford to buy them something, I tell them the difference between wants and needs and they have mastered deferred gratification. I show them basic survival needs along the way. They know how to fend for themselves for the most part but I am less concerned about them eating undercooked chicken than I am about them paying $2.99 a pound for chicken

 

[cabanafrau]

All of these household skills are important but I don't remember being taught so much as left to figure it out myself. My passion is teaching kids about finances. I have a kid in my office - a really good kid. He is 21 and is in a financial hole so deep that he is really struggling to dig his way out of it. He landed in a very well paying job for a 21 year old with a HS diploma. But, when he was younger, he got himself into credit card debt and bought a new car before paying off the old one. He told me that between car insurance and car payment, he is paying $800 a month just to have the car.

He has seen the light and now has Ramen noodles and scrambled eggs fro lunch every day.

I have three brothers and each one of them has been or is a hot freakin' mess when it comes to money.

I preach finances to my children all the time. even when I can afford to buy them something, I tell them the difference between wants and needs and they have mastered deferred gratification. I show them basic survival needs along the way. They know how to fend for themselves for the most part but I am less concerned about them eating undercooked chicken than I am about them paying $2.99 a pound for chicken

Certainly finances are an important concept.

Other ideas that might be good talking points for your kids heading off into independent living are things like how can you tell if a roommate or a friend is so inebriated it's time to call 9-1-1? That's something my oldest faced with a roommate coming home in the wee hours of the morning, waking her up out of a dead sleep trying to simply get into the room and then what followed afterwards. My daughter told me later that she was terrified her roommate might be in serious condition medically, but she wasn't confident she could tell and she was afraid of the consequences the girl might face from the school afterwards as a minor who had been clearly drinking -- as well as the consequences of herself living with a roommate who was angry about being outed by her roommate calling 9-1-1 for an ambulance, particularly if my daughter was incorrect in the first place that her roommate was so incredibly drunk that she was actually in danger.

 

[BLAZEY]

Ok my DD is 9. She already knows how to sort her whites, lights and darks. I tell her I'm doing laundry, she collects the colour I'm doing. She has watched me measure out soap and start the washer and had to do it for a Brownie badge. She can load and unload the dishwasher, or wash dishes by hand. She sorts the recycling and takes it outside. I work full time and don't have enough hours in the day to do all the household chores for 3 people all on my own. She cooks with DH and her Oma. I feel I am failing as a parent if she can't do simple household tasks by the time she's finished middle school, never mind starting university. My job is to making a her a fully functioning adult.

 

[Cheetie]

Honestly, I never made a concerted effort to teach them anything with surviving independently in mind. They’re both young adults now and both can cook, do laundry, pump gas, make appointments,mow the lawn etc etc. I may have answered a question or three along the way, but I think they picked it up just by living in the house and seeing it done.

 

[disykat]

Like others here, I was satisfied that I'd taught my kids pretty well just through basic parenting, having them help me and have their own chores, their summer employment (required by me once they were working age) and managing their own bank accounts, etc. I was probably more overt about teaching money management than many are, because I was raised the same.

My best friend didn't overtly teach her kids money management and has regretted it. (She's a great parent but just didn't emphasize money management and often says she wishes she'd done what I did. She thought I was overboard at the time.) I started early with the spend/save/give method for their small allowance (my parents did the same with me so it was normal to me) and an early savings account at the bank. I did what others here have mentioned and my kids had debit cards by the time they were driving. I kept the ability to view their bank accounts until they graduated from college since I was paying tuition and helping with other expenses. I encouraged them to get credit cards about two years in to college while I could still see their spending, so both had two years of a paying it off every month so they don't pay interest habit before they were on their own. While it sounds controlling, I never had to talk to them about money/spending because I could see right on my banking dashboard that they weren't having any issues. I think it's possible knowing that I could see helped them tow the line. Money has never been a fight for us and they've never had issues. Even though I wrote a huge paragraph about it, we didn't really talk much about money, it was just the expectation like helping around the house, etc. Part of life, mostly learned by watching us.

I do think many would benefit from a basic skills class in high school.
I'd rather have my kids waste a semester elective on stuff they already know that have the generation they will grow old with be clueless. I took a personal finance class in high school and already knew everything that was taught because of how I was raised. It didn't hurt me and I think it helped a lot of people. Ideally, they could have a way to test your way out if you wanted to skip it.

 

[BLAZEY]

I am about them paying $2.99 a pound for chicken

I would love to be able to buy chicken for $2.99/ lbs. That is annual warehouse sale pricing where I live! But yes I buy stuff on sale in bulk and pack it in meal servings to save money. DD shops with us and we are able to tell her WHY we buy things we do. I have her use the calculator on my phone to get the unit cost of items to find the better deal.

 

[amcnj]

My oldest graduated from college a year ago. The was really only one thing I remember her commenting on that she was surprised that people didn't know how to do. Pump Gas.

Maybe they were from NJ! I thought NJ and Oregon were the last two states that didn’t allow self service, but I read not too long ago that parts of Oregon now allow it. I remember the first time I drove out of state and had to read the instructions on the pump!

 

[BLAZEY]

Honestly, I never made a concerted effort to teach them anything with surviving independently in mind. They’re both young adults now and both can cook, do laundry, pump gas, make appointments,mow the lawn etc etc. I may have answered a question or three along the way, but I think they picked it up just by living in the house and seeing it done.

I don't think I made a specific effort to teach her for the sake of teaching her, both DH and I grew up in homes where you were expected to pull your own weight and pitch in. When she asks what I'm doing or how to do something I'm going to help her learn.

 

[georgina]

I was going to say the same thing. NJ does not have self serve pumps. None of my kids had cars in college (2 still don't as adults in places with good public transportation). I see these threads every fall. I sent 3 kids off to college, what they don't know they can learn or google. Seriously, who irons these days? I sure as heck don't. I did teach my kids some money management skills, but I still do my 26 year old son's taxes. Big deal. In the grand scheme of life it really doesn't matter. They are all making good salaries and supporting themselves and I dont feel I failed as a parent if they don't make their beds!

My son lived in NYC for 2 years without doing laundry. He dropped it off in he morning and picked it up in the evening. He did it in college and does it now that he needs to, despite never doing it at home; they will learn as needed.

 

[jrmasm]

Maybe they were from NJ! I thought NJ and Oregon were the last two states that didn’t allow self service, but I read not too long ago that parts of Oregon now allow it. I remember the first time I drove out of state and had to read the instructions on the pump!

You guessed right! NJ!

But why send your kid out of NJ, with a car, and not teach them how?

 

[disykat]

You guessed right! NJ!

But why send your kid out of NJ, with a car, and not teach them how?

I can answer this one! I'm from Oregon and never had a car to drive living out of state until I was post college and nowhere near my parents.