I love the teenage years. You get to truly watch your child blossom into an independent person that is going to navigate the world on their own.
If you have looked at your teen recently and it suddenly occurred to you that you may not have taught them everything they need to know before flying the nest, don’t worry. Here is a quick list of ten things to start with. You can go more in depth once you realize what they know wand what you need to focus on.
In the Murphy house, we are BIG on adulting tasks. Our philosophy was that we were raising adults and people to be a positive part of society. Our goal as parents was to have most adulting skills be second nature by the time our kids left the nest so that life wasn’t too overwhelming.
Which brings me to ten things to teach your teen before they leave for college or head out into the world.
- Manage a basic budget
- Laundry
- Email / text
- Getting to a place on time
- Waking up on their own
- Make 5 meals
- Speak on the phone
- Find out info for themselves
- See a need and fill it
- Advocate for themselves
Manage A Basic Budget:
It is so important that your kids can get from payday (whether that is a paycheck or an allowance), they need to be able to get from payday to payday without running out of money. I highly encourage a paper paycheck budget so that they have to write down each bill and expense. This helps their brain register the spending in a more concrete way.
Laundry:
Having your teen manage their laundry for a few years before they leave the house teaches them so many valuable time management skills in addition to actually being able to do laundry. They have to notice when they are running out of clean clothes. They have to learn to plan ahead if they need something specific, clean for a particular day or event. Noticing what your clothes are made of and how to clean them is another great lesson to learn under your roof. Then there is learning how to use the washer and dryer. How long does each cycle take? The ever elusive feat of putting laundry away as soon as it comes out of the dryer.
Email/Text:
Learning how to communicate via email and text professionally is key. Yes, they may have been emailing their teachers, but have they been using proper grammar? Capitalization and punctuation? Do they know how to eliminate passive words and hold someone accountable without being aggressive? Do they know how to match the energy of the person they are responding to? How about staying within office hours for communication?
When our kids are texting a co-worker or boss, we encourage full sentences. Yes, it is a more casual form of conversation, but it is important to keep the relationship professional, and that includes texts.
Getting to a place on time:
Most kids have plenty of experience getting to school, practice and their job on time (or close to it). This is really for when our kids have to start diving a few towns away. Go to a new location for an event, Dr. appointment, or job interview. GPS is great. Some will even tell you when to leave to arrive on time.
This is what we have taught our kids. Map out the location of where you are going. Look at the street view to see what the building looks like. This will also give them an idea of parking. Next look at the turn-by-turn directions. This will give them a loose idea of what streets and turns they are going to make. Have them take note of any landmarks they will be passing. GPS can be wonky and lead you astray, if they have looked up the directions and have a general idea of where they are going, they will be able to notice if they have gone the wrong way quicker. Last but not least, add ten minutes onto the estimated travel time. This allows for construction, taking a wrong turn or simply finding the correct building in a business park.
Waking up on their own:
This can be tricky. You don’t want your child to be late to school, sports, work… but they have to learn this skill on their own. If you have a kid who needs to be woken up on most school days, you don’t want them to be late. BUT, you absolutely want them to learn how to get up on their own and to school on-time BEFORE they leave the house. We were 50/50 on this front and had one kid who was on-time 95% of the time and one who had to watch his tardies or he wouldn’t be able to skip finals senior year. YES. Our school had an incentive that if you had a certain grade in a class and fewer than the required number of tardies, you could SKIP your finals! It was such a fun perk and added to the end-of-year excitement.
Make 5 Meals:
PLEASE send your kid out into the world with at least the basics. This is more about empowering them to know that they can cook rather than picking the perfect five meals to teach them to cook. You can teach them to cook family favorites, the best budget meals, restaurant knock-offs, or how to bulk cook. What is important is that your child is fairly familiar with the kitchen, small appliances, and the grocery store. If you want to level up, have them cook once a week and make a recipe builder of the meals they know how to cook and the family favorite recipes. We started working on this when the kids were young and now we are in charge of the turkey and the kids cook everything else for Thanksgiving. It’s fabulous and worth all the dropped ingredients and ruined meals to get to that point.
Speak on the phone:
If you are Gen X like me, you may remember the phone lessons we had when we were little. I was taught how to answer the phone.
These days, (yes, even with all of our cool technology) it is sometimes much easier and quicker to just call. This could be as simple as ordering a pizza or learning how to make a doctor’s appointment. Go over the information you may need ahead of time for each type of call. Knowing how to talk to a co-worker or boss on the phone is important as well. While we are at it, teach your kids about your phone voice. If you smile while speaking, it comes across in your tone of voice! It’s an easy way to stand out and have a pleasant experience.
Find out info for themselves:
This can cover so many areas of life. It can start as simple as your child wanting something. Say it’s a new pair of cleats. GREAT. Here is your budget. Go find out what stores carry your size and what the prices are. Can we go try them on in person? Who has free shipping? Free returns? What do the reviews say about these cleats?
Do they need something fixed on their car or say they have a hole in the wall? Have them YouTube the issue and find videos on how to do it. Is this something they can do alone? Do they need your help? What tools nad materials do they need? Is this something to hire out? Teaching them that they most likely can do things on their own empowers them to try when they fly the nest.
See a need and fill it:
This may be my favorite skill to see the kids acquire. It truly is as simple as the name. See something that needs to be done and do it. Easy peezy, lemon squeezy. This is taught by having you and your child go into a room and ask them to find something that needs to be done. It can be from a chore list or something that they notice.
Examples:
Kitchen: put clean dishes away, wipe counters, put dirty dishes in the dishwasher, take out the trash
Living room: Put pillows on couch, put away blankets, dust, vacuum.
Bedroom: Pick up laundry, make bed, tidy bookshelves.
Bathroom: Empty trash, clean toilet, wipe mirror
You get the idea, it will be different every time you practice. After they are done noticing, you can point out what you see. I always found it super interesting what t hey noticed first. A great way to get them to notice things, is to have them point out something for YOU to do. A lot of times, they are “blind” to needs simply because they think it will take a long time to do it. If you show them it takes two minutes to put the clean dishes away, they are more likely to do it. Use positive reinforcement. Point out when they notice something and do it. One day, they will see a need and they will fill it, and you will be so proud.
Advocate for themselves:
This obviously can show up in so many different circumstances. Again, this is more of a practice and self-confidence thing versus learning a specific skill. It can be intimidating to ask for your order at a restaurant to be fixed, to ask for a refund for a faulty service, to ask a Dr. to order a test they have not suggested, or talk to a teacher/professor about a grade. This can be confused with being too abrasive or pushy. Talking through appropriate situations to speak up will help your teen get over the potential embarrassment of having to stick up for themselves.
If you have reached the end of this list and feel like you have a good number of these items marked off, congratulations! Either way, you are doing GREAT! Keep an eye on this space and make sure you are signed up for our newsletter so you can get notified when we post about teaching kids how to adult!
