Asking for help (like working with a writing tutor) is NOT a sign of weakness.
I thought my kids were pretty adept at managing health care before leaving for college. The one thing that tripped up my D was health insurance. She didn’t understand deductibles, co-pays, in network vs. out of network providers, covered services, etc. Unfortunately, that lack of knowledge translated into some unexpected medical bills. Make sure your kid understands your insurance plan, and knows what questions to ask a health care provider before services are rendered.
We spent the summer before college on all kinds of life lessons: how to use an ATM machine, how to balance a checkbook, how to do laundry. Then we discovered on move-in day that I had forgotten one key lesson…how to make a bed with a fitted sheet.
I made D1 a “10 things you need to know about college” list. Then one for D2. Brief, but things like why it’s important to go to office hours. And…how fast talk about you can fly in a dorm.
Older DD goes to our state flagship. When you are caught drinking under age you get arrested. Sent to the county jail, get fingerprinted, mug shot, the whole nine yards. It’s bad enough when it happens but with the proliferation of mug shot sites and mug shot facebook pages the shame is tenfold.
We know many “good” kids who were doing what scores of other kids do but were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The mug shots are mortifying for the kid and the family. I’m going to make sure my kid is fully aware.
How to navigate public transportation in a new city – and airports, too.
And how to act on public transportation (quiet, don’t draw attention to yourself, don’t have valuables out, always know where you’re headed, etc.).
I like Pizzagirl’s suggestion about warning your kid on how not being a target. Too many kids from safe neighborhoods don’t realize that thieves actually target school hallways and bike lots at some schools during the first weeks of fall semester because they KNOW that kids leave valuables in their backpacks, don’t lock their bikes consistently or their rooms, put wallets in accessible places, walk away from laptops to got to the bathroom…D lost her wallet the very first week of class at a top tier school and she wasn’t the only one. No one knows who ‘belongs’ on campus or thinks it suspicious when someone picks up a random backpack and searches the pockets…
No one has mentioned reminding them what the elements of “safe sex” are.
Gee, my kids have been doing laundry and making beds since they were 10 or 11. Poor little Cinderellas.
Get a pack of condoms for either sex, give it to them. Message: safe sex.
First, last, and in between: “I’m always here for you. No matter what happens. I love you.”
Before I headed off for college my Mom taught me how to iron. I took a travel iron with me, along with typewriter and clock radio. That and a set of signed but blank checks and I was ready to set out on my own. Kids never had credit cards in those days or checking accounts. When I needed cash I would take one of those checks my Mom had signed, put an amount (typically $20) on it and write “cash” on it, and the college bursar would cash it. Those ware the things we planned for as we were about to head to college.
I agree with all of the above! Just will add that I think managing money is harder for a high schooler to learn. We opened a checking account for my daughter with an ATM card when she started to drive on her own. We transfer money into it and she uses the money for gas, small purchases, restaurants or movies with friends. If she didn’t have this account, I would just be handing her the cash anyway!! She is learning to write checks for her own needs as well. She is helped to record her expenses do the math and balance her account by logging in online. She has seen how the balance has gone down to almost zero and she needs to speak up.
I think some simple cooking is important because the trend seems to be moving off campus wiithin a few years.
Clean the bathroom! With all of the suite style dorms we have seen, the students need to clean it themselves. Yes, even the toilet!
My kids are intimidated about ordering pizza and I figure that will resolve as soon as the necessity arises!
I might need to have her go for an oil change sometime and learn about how they always try to upsell you additional services!
Looking back, now that both are graduated, there isn’t anything I think we missed. (They went ahead and made certain mistakes despite what we’d taught them.) But starting in hs senior year, we had backed off a bit, let them have more personal stake in their responsibilities and choices, a bit more privacy, so our relationship with them was ready for the next step. We made sure we were bonding in a way that would work when they were living away.
@lookingforward, I’m curious - did you revise your list of 10 things to know in the years between D1 and D2?
My kids all got their first jobs at age 15, and at that point we got them a checking account (with my name also on the account but not on the face of the checks). When they started driving at 16, they each got a debit card. But all the money in that account is their earned money. (They already had savings accounts since they were little, but at that time the money was from gifts or odd jobs like pet sitting, raking for neighbors, etc). Once they went to college, I opened another account for them and I keep “parent money” available. They use that for things we parents would normally pay for, like printer paper or groceries. They use their own account for their personal expenses (dates, ski trips, beer). It has worked out pretty well. They know how to write checks and handle a debit/credit card. From the time they were young, we always made them handle things, even though I might be standing right there. For example, when we would go to the doctor, I would always make them approach he receptionist, sign in, give their name, show their insurance card, fill out the form, then tell me where to sign. So I felt pretty good about those skills when they left for college. But then, when my oldest was a freshman, he called home to ask which side the stamp went on an envelope, and I thought “Really - he doesn’t know that?” All those years of writing thank you notes, I guess I always stamped and mailed them for him. It makes me wonder what other gaps there are! Sheesh!
Barfly, a little, because they were so different from each other, back then. (They went to college a year apart.) Wish I could get a copy but it’s on an old computer. It was Mom advice I didn’t think they realized about college.
Twoin, my girls knew how to do laundry - in our home machines. When I went to finish moving D2 in after pre-orientation trip I went with her to laundry room and she was stumped by front loading machines and the different settings. And she had never paid attention at home to how much time stuff took to dry and wasn’t sure how much time to put on dryers. I know she would have figured it out, but I ended up helping her and about 3 other freshmen in the same boat. Best laundry advice - color catchers - since college kids don’t usually have enough to separate loads of clothes out.
This is not as important as some other things mentioned but it saves on ruined clothes. Thankfully neither of mine needed to know about mass transit - I’m bad at that myself.
Nothing wrong with that, but patterns differ in different families. My kids, like @scmom12’s kids, knew how to do laundry in our home machines because occasionally, they would need clean clothes before it was time for a family wash. But since my son had only done his own laundry, I warned him that women’s laundry is far more complicated. Students sometimes offer to do another person’s laundry along with their own, and I didn’t want him ruining some girl’s clothes because he didn’t know that there exist garments that can go in the washer but not the dryer.
One of my biggest regrets is that my kids didn’t have a chance to learn how to drive in snow before they left for college. And neither has had a chance since then, either because they’ve lived in places where they didn’t need cars or because they lived in climates with no snow. But one day, they’re going to need that skill and they won’t have it.
In retrospect, I should have insisted that they get their licenses at the earliest possible time so that we could take advantage of the relatively rare snowy days in Maryland and force them to get practice in winter driving. But both dawdled about getting their licenses, and then the opportunity to teach them never arose.
Here is a fun old thread about life skills your kids should know before they go off to college.
And speaking of driving skills - make sure they know to never ever stop on the RR tracks. I don’t think it was something I had explicitly mentioned until there was a local accident with a train. Someone was closely following the traffic ahead of them and when traffic stopped, they were on the tracks. Now there are six dead from the Metro North train - car collision.