<p>I love this post and think it is very practical for both genders . Men who can cook and do laundry are awesome! Women who can do car maintenance, lawn care and household repairs/painting are awesome too! Both genders should be encouraged to learn it all.</p>
<p>Well, lots of these are easy to teach. When the kids got to high school, I just announced that while I would be happy to show them how, I would no longer be doing any laundry. If OP’s ds doesn’t have his senior course schedule selected yet, sign up for some home ec (although it might be called something else). Basic cooking and cleaning up afterwards and simple sewing skills. My brother took those courses back in the stone ages. Turned out great for him while he was single. He didn’t starve and except for the spare auto parts on the kitchen table, the place was pretty clean.</p>
<p>Others: How to unclog a drain, change the flapper dealie in the toilet, change a lightbulb–in just about anything, including the headlight/taillight of the car. And yes, deal with medical offices and insurance. </p>
<p>I’m sure there are more. I have to try to remember what kinds of questions d calls with (and I think, “I never taught you that?”).</p>
<p>I agree that a bit of cooking is a good thing. Not talking anything fancy. Scrambling eggs, cooking a chop or hamburger. If they’ve at least done some observation they’ll understand the directions better at least. That said don’t kick yourself if you don’t get it all done. My son’s crowd junior year of high school spent the summer cooking dinner together. My son learned how to make a mean apple pie, a skill he took to college with him and impressed people on any number of occasions. I was kind of surprised when this fall, in an apartment for the first time (in Jordan no less!) he sent me an e-mail asking about how to scramble an egg. That said, my older son is almost 25 and the only thing he makes himself is lemonade (frozen.)</p>
<p>Laundry and money management (joint accounts work great) are the most critical.</p>
<p>For time management - I’d suggest stepping back from homework nagging and monitoring computer playtime senior year - if you haven’t already been doing it. Both my kids spent a lot of time playing games on the computer, but I was pretty confident that though they spent more time than I liked, they had a pretty good fix on how to make sure they still had enough time to get their homework done.</p>
<p>From another thread, a post I wrote years ago: </p>
<p>
Not that he ever changes his sheets, mind you, but he does know how, and he does wash his clothes when they need it. He’s 19 now, and still doesn’t know how to write a check, as he still doesn’t have any. Heck, I rarely write checks any more. When he graduates in May, I’ll introduce him to the billpayer features of his credit union account so he can set up payments on his student loan. </p>
<p>He did learn how to cook a few simple balanced dinners, can cook eggs, bake brownies, cookies, and a cake. (At some point, he may need to take cookies or some such to a social event – he should know how to do this!)</p>
<p>And before he gets his driver’s license – he does (finally) have his learner’s permit, woo-hoo! – he will know how to change a tire, check the oil, radiator and brake fluids, and summon help aside from calling Mom. He already knows how to put gas in the tank because I have him do that now. </p>
<p>He’s also gotten to know the ins and outs of sheetrock repair and one of his jobs when he is home from school is to change burned out light bulbs I can’t reach, as he’s seven inches taller than I am and doesn’t need a step stool to change them!</p>
<p>The big thing I noticed in college was that the boys knew how to do laundry, but did not know how to remove stains. If they spilled ketchup on their clothes, they just threw them out. I used to catch the boy I was dating at the time doing it and would steal the clothes to get the stains out for him and put them back in his closet.</p>
<p>Writing a check, having checks, and knowing when you need one is a big issue because it is so rare. My D1, who uses a debit card for froyo, and her three very smart roommates almost lost the apartment they wanted to rent because none of them had thought to bring a real live paper check for the deposit. Same thing goes for cash. D2 learned the hard way you cannot buy a ticket on the train on the commuter rail with a debit card! Suddenly mom’s insistence that she always carry an emergency $20 was not so annoying.</p>
<p>Just shaking my head that kids are not required to clean, do laundry, cook, ect by the time they are a Freshman in HS at least. They should have a part-time job too. </p>
<p>It’s called parenting people, not a B&B. And we wonder why kids are spoiled…</p>
<p>I have only daughters, but I was a 16 yr old boy once. My dad raised us. I had to do my own laundry. I hated it. I wore jeans because you could wear them for a month before they got dirty. They never seemed to get dry in the dryer. </p>
<p>Cooking? We had Hamburger Helper and Swanson TV dinners most nights anyway. Later, boiler bags became the norm. You boil the water, drop in the bags. Taste great! Broccoli and Chedder? Yum. </p>
<p>Otherwise, pouring milk on the cereal, or putting mustard on the sandwiches was pretty easy. I learned how to cook for real in my frat house during the summers when we had to cook for ourselves. The house was coed during the summer. </p>
<p>Cleaning? At 16, “Looks clean to me!” 
I did learn how to clean correctly in the frat house as well. </p>
<p>I learned all the skills of life as they became necessary.</p>
<p>dad-if your father had learned how to cook-you’d have not had to subsist on Hamburger Helper and cereal. And just because you hated doing laundry doesn’t mean you don’t have to do it. I’m very glad my H and my S do not expect that the women of the house have to do something they’re perfectly capable of doing. Nice that you expect your D’s to teach some clueless boy the skills his parents should have taught him.</p>
<p>My H was raised by a woman who was a domestic worker. She taught ALL of her kids how to cook a full meal, how to shop for it, how to clean and do laundry by the time they were 10, because she was not about to be her own kid’s maid as well. The fact that my H and I can TRULY split home chores is something I thank her for every day (although she passed away long before I could meet her). Iron Maiden-she actually told her kids that she did not run a hotel…</p>
<p>Laundry - Requires only a 2 minute demo. After that, just put him in charge of his own laundry. He can ask followup questions if needed. (If he wants to separate whites/dark, that’s fine. If not let him do it his way. That’s what he’ll do in college.) </p>
<p>Ironing - Not necessary if you buy easy care clothes. Just teach him to hang up his shirts when still warm from the dryer.</p>
<p>Shopping/cooking - Just put him in charge of both this summer (they go hand in hand). Initially he’ll probably do a lot of BBQ and frozen entrees Work together to add some easy home cooked meals - chicken cutlets, lasagna, spaghetti, yes even Hamburger Helper. Jump in once in a while to cook to a more appreciative family. This worked at our house. We had no budget limitations (the hard part) -gave him gift cards that our church sells for fundraising. But DS learned budget aspects when cooking on his own dime at school.</p>
<p>sewing a button is handy to know. Or know that you can get it done at a dry cleaners
And how to tie a tie</p>
<p>My dad worked most waking hours trying to stay out of bankruptcy while caring for 3 kids. Cooking was just a short break before he went back to work so that we could all eat. He eventually went bankrupt anyway and had to sell our house to buy food. </p>
<p>I was just describing the mindset of me as a 16yr old boy with a part-time job, schoolwork, a social life, and a lot of stress. This kind of stuff was the last thing that I needed at 16. </p>
<p>I’m not suggesting that this stuff is women’s work, I’m suggesting that these life skills are often better learned when one is motivated to learn them.</p>
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<p>This works for a lot of things, but sometimes people don’t learn skills because they don’t realize that the need exists.</p>
<p>Example: My 26-year-old son recently moved. While he was making his moving arrangements, I happened to say, “Don’t forget to get your postal mail forwarded.” His reply was “Why would I need to do that? I didn’t do it the last time.” Evidently, he had not had his mail forwarded the previous time he moved, a year and a half earlier, because he had not realized that this is something a person should do.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how to prevent situations like this. I’m just presenting the topic for discussion.</p>
<p>Always liked this list written by Marilyn Vos Savant - pretty complete:</p>
<p>It Would Be Great If By 18 Years Every Young Person Could Do The Following:
™ Domestic Skills
‰ Cook (dont just open and pour) a traditional breakfast, lunch and dinner.
‰ Wash and iron clothes without ruining them (plus removing spots).
‰ Replace a button and baste a fallen hem.
‰ Basic house cleaning, not mixing cleaning agents.</p>
<p>™ Physical Skills
‰ Throw and catch balls of all sizes without breaking your fingers.
‰ Swim half a mile, tread water for half an hour and float for an hour.
‰ Ride a bike with confidence.</p>
<p>™ Handyman Skills
‰ Hang a picture straight without making extra holes in the wall.
‰ Paint neatly, including cleaning up the mess.
‰ Know which tools perform what functions and how to use them around the house.
‰ Know what a fuse box looks like and how to reset it if a fuse blows in your
house/apartment.</p>
<p>™ Outdoor Skills
‰ Hike with friends without getting lost, bitten, sunburned or covered with a rash.</p>
<p>™ Practical Skills
‰ Type well with both hands in the proper manner.
‰ Set up your own computer system without help from anyone.
‰ Drive a car, including one with manual transmission and maintain it properly.
‰ Learn to parallel park.</p>
<p>™ Organizational Skills
‰ Create a budget. Note: It takes longer to earn money than to spend it.
‰ Balance a checkbook manually, even if you bank online.
‰ Maintain an address book and a personal appointment calendar.
‰ Set up a filing system to keep all the paperwork in your life in one place</p>
<p>^ For what it’s worth, the Boy Scouts of America teaches almost all of the skills on that list via merit badge requirements.</p>
<p>My son’s an Eagle Scout and does much of the cooking for himself and two room mates. They moved off campus their junior year to save money. Neither of the others can cook; one regularly eats a couple of donuts of dinner, and the other resorts to a box of mac-n-cheese.</p>
<p>I would add being able to get up with an alarm clock without relying on one parent or the other to yell up the stairs 20 times as he/she continually dozes back to sleep.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone has yet mentioned taxes. My kids have had to file while away at college, and they did it themselves. My D even had an ongoing situation with the IRS, as they did not properly credit the check she’d sent them on time. Even after several phone calls, the problem persisted and she got a lien notice. So I definitely agree that prior experience talking with customer service people is helpful for the unexpected, and for the normal things like financial aid offices, etc.</p>
<p>They need to know their medical history also. They will learn and be reminded of many facts as they fill out the college health forms as freshmen, but might not know information like what sort of cancer grandpa died of.</p>
<p>I think most of the skills mentioned here could be learned when our kids need to, and if they couldn’t do it the first time they could certainly learn it second time, no harm done. </p>
<p>What’s invaluable is to teach our kids how to interact with adult. I see so many young adults who can’t carry on a conversation with any adults. They don’t know how to deal with customer service, school administrators, IRS, even their professors. They only know to speak their own lingo and can’t relate to anyone over 25. They know how to text short messages, but do not know how to write a professional email. When they are around adults, they are fidgeting. Unless adults are talking to them about the latest fads they can’t relate. I think it would be helpful if parents could coach their kids on how to interact with other adults.</p>
<p>So many good ones here… </p>
<p>But I will add know how and who to ask for help. Not to be afraid to ask for help in classes or go to an RA or adviser etc if they have a question or concern. </p>
<p>The girl across the hall from my D was falling behind in classes last fall because she didn’t understand the material. Instead of going to the professor or tutoring she let a bad situation get worse and failed the class. </p>
<p>Also make sure they understand how to read health insurance form and fill out paperwork in Doctors office.</p>
<p>@oldfort–sometimes I wish that adults would learn how to interact with us as well! I am the only person under age 30 on my team at work (they are all 30+, married, and have young children) and they look at me like I have 6 heads. They gave me the nickname of “GG” (Generational Gap) because I often find myself not having a clue what they are talking about pop culturally. They also make fun of me pretty regularly for those reasons</p>