<p>And if it due to my poor parenting, too late now.</p>
<p>Anyway, I am worried about her surviving at college. Her first choice is a small school in the middle of nowhere. Trust me.</p>
<p>I have gone on line and they have no wash and fold services, or even a laundromat in town. Any hope?</p>
<p>She’ll be fine. You can teach her how to do laundry NOW, and if she refuses to learn, she WILL learn at college all by herself, or with the help of her friends there. Or, she’ll wear dirty clothes. I taught my kids when they were in middle school and I made up a “cheat sheet” to help guide them when they initially started. Maybe you can do the same to help give her the basics.</p>
<p>No one failed to thrive at college because of an issue like this!!! This is a life issue - what they don’t know, they learn. I guess I don’t really understand your concern.</p>
<p>I’m not really sure what the problem is? Pretty much all schools have laundry facilities where everyone does their laundry. It’s not that difficult…all you have to do is press a button. Even people who have never done their laundry before manage it.</p>
<p>You have got to be kidding! Asking for a wash and fold service? No wonder you might feel that she is irresponsible! Teach her to do her own laundry, like the majority of us. That will be a great first step in learning to be responsible for herself. Or, as Colorado says, she will be wearing dirty clothes, until she decides that is gross and she will figure it out for herself.</p>
<p>I have a list of things to teach my kid before he leaves the nest. Doing laundry is on that list, and was checked off before he first went to a residential summer camp. He’s been responsible for his laundry since then (though I sometimes help him out). </p>
<p>Take your D to a laundromat and show her how the machines work before she goes. </p>
<p>Or not. </p>
<p>She’ll learn one way or another!</p>
<p>(I went to boarding school for part of high school. There was a girl across the hall from me in the dorm who arrived not knowing how to make a bed – she’d never made one in her life! She learned. Wasn’t happy about learning how, but she did learn! :D)</p>
<p>My college roommate (and still one of my best friends!) did not know how to do laundry when she came to school. She would ask me if she could throw her clothes in with mine and I let her do it for awhile and then I taught her how to do the wash!</p>
<p>The first time I went home with her and visited her family I understood why she did not know how to do things for herself. She had 2 other sisters and her mom would follow around behind the girls picking things up as they left them all over.</p>
<p>My roommate soon learned from me how to do laundry, clean our room and pick up after herself!</p>
<p>When I went to college, back in the dark ages, there was laundry service – wash and fold and clean sheets every week. OK, I guess not every school, etc.</p>
<p>Before she went to college, my D would not wear an item twice without washing. After a few weeks at college, she and a roommate had a contest to see who could wear the same pair of jeans the longest. I know that the “contest” went past a couple of months.</p>
<p>LOL - I learned how to use the laundry service!</p>
<p>Mom taught me the basics of doing laundry before I left - I was an only child with a working Mom who often found it easier to do things herself than try to teach me, but I did learn a little of the rudiments of cooking, laundry. checking the oil - she’s no housekeeper, and neither am I.</p>
<p>what I learned on my own, about junior year of college, was to use the wash and fold service at the local laundromat when time got tight - back in those days it only cost about $3 more than washing yourself, and no hu8nting around for quarters.</p>
<p>My son knows how. He rarely does it. I don’t know how he survives but he does. He doesn’t seem to mind wearing dirty clothes. He is also not that great at remembering to brush his teeth. He doesn’t have a roommate and his room is a mess. But somehow he has no problem finding females who are interested in him.
He also has misplaced his 3rd debit card this school year. He doesn’t seem concerned. He is who he is. His sister said he better find a wife who wants to take care of him.</p>
<p>Apparently my S’s roommate doesn’t know how to do laundry, either. S says he’s seen him lay out dirty socks and underwear in the middle of the dorm room and spray them with Oust/Febreze.</p>
<p>Kayf…no not at every school and also not for everyone. Thirty years ago when my husband and I were in college, there was wash-and-fold laundry service (returned in beautiful brown paper packages tied up with string!!), clean sheets every week, and maid service to clean dorm rooms…but only for males students. Women (who were severely in the minority) changed our own sheets (altho they were provided by the university, we all bought our own), used coin-operated washers and dryers and cleaned our own bathrooms. Things have definitely changed.</p>
<p>And it’s not “bad parenting”. Just an easy thing to fix. Start this weekend and show her how to do laundry. You might also want to show her how to clean a bathroom, vacuum and perhaps cook some easy meals. I know my son appreciated the knowledge…at his college, the four guys who share a suite bathroom/shower were responsible for cleaning it themselves. And they had RA inspections regularly. Now he complains that the two women he lives with off-campus are the slobs. Wow, he’s come a long way…</p>
<p>From now on when she is clothes shopping, have her look at the care labels on the clothes. My daughter was surprised at how many things require delicate or cool dryer. When she goes to college get some of the zippered bags that go in the wash for delicates. I separate into them the items that need to be air dried. My daughter has a folding wooden drying rack in her room but she has a large single. If space is an issue, perhaps those hanger things that would hold 5 skirts could be used.</p>
<p>Time for her to learn all this now so it won’t seem like a big deal in the fall.</p>
<p>I did my first wash at summer camp at age 11, so I am sure that your D can learn (nOW).</p>
<p>Btw, I met several dates in the laundry room, the following not being one of them.
Unforgettable laundry story: Freshman year of college a fellow from the engineering division (pocket protector, slide rule, thick glasses and all) did wash and I managed to see the end of the wash cycle. He had loaded his stuff into a machine which already had finished washing and spinning, but had not yet been emptied. Well the machine broke down, and it was filled with water. He had to separate his stuff from the girl who had left her stuff in the washer. He just took it out sopping wet and put it all in his laundry bag, and walked back to his dorm with a dripping full bag, leaving a trail of water behind. I really regret now not even offering advice (he did not ask for it.) Make sure to tutor on doomsday scenarios.</p>
<p>kayf: Not irresponsible, just unknowledgeable.</p>
<p>When I saw the title, I thought this was another “kid won’t finish the college applications and send them” thread.</p>
<p>Not yet knowing how to do laundry is not the end of the world.</p>
<p>It might be a good idea to draw your daughter’s attention to the care labels on clothing now because it would be a good idea for her to start paying attention to them as she shops for clothes – many of which will go to college with her – during the upcoming months.</p>
<p>Prospective students often don’t appreciate the awkwardness of having to handwash clothes and dry them in a dorm room or the expense of dry cleaning. You might want to point out to your daughter that for anything that she plans to take to college and wear regularly, if she has a choice between a garment that is machine washable and dryable and one that isn’t, she might be happier with the former choice.</p>
<p>This could lead into a discussion of how to use laundry equipment. But if it doesn’t, she’ll learn when she gets there.</p>
<p>You might also mention something that I learned in college – even though students sometimes help each other out by doing each other’s laundry (often in exchange for some other type of help), a girl should never let a guy do her laundry. The reason: women’s clothes come in a much wider variety of fabrics than men’s clothes do and require different types of care. Guys can throw pretty much everything they own into the machines on the same settings, and they don’t realize that women can’t. Thus, if a guy does your laundry, he’ll probably ruin some of your clothes.</p>
<p>D’s school sent us a flyer advertising laundry services. The most expensive package was close to $1000/year with some drycleaning included! :eek: D said she’d save some money by doing her own laundry.</p>
<p>OP, your D will learn how to do laundry in no time. Just make sure that she does not bring any clothes requiring special care. Socks, jeans and sweats are hard to ruin even in college washing machines.</p>
<p>Veryhappy, thank you for your perspective</p>
<p>Said kid did finish all her apps before 1/1. Said kid did get all As and one B first quarter and tells me all As for second. </p>
<p>I didnt want to get into stuff like laundry before Midyear grades go out, and maybe not till this summer. </p>
<p>I just don’t understand why if some kids need work/study jobs, this is so wrong to ask for.</p>
<p>Some ideas:
–starting today, put a laundry basket in her room and let her be responsible for her own laundry. Make her aware that some fabrics require different washing and/or drying methods. </p>
<p>–take her to the bank and have her open up a checking account (request a debit card). Teach her how to write out a check, record the amount, how to deposit money, and how to use an ATM machine (and how to record the withdrawals from her checking account). </p>
<p>–if she asks you to make phone calls for her to admissions or to her current high school for one thing or another, say no and get her used to making these types of phone calls. When she gets to college, it’s important that she have the communication skills necessary to ask for information or help from different departments if she finds that she needs help.</p>
<p>–teach her how to wash and change her sheets.</p>
<p>–have her apply for a credit card (if she’s 18) and teach her to pay the bill in full when she gets it. Have her write out the check and send in the payment correctly.</p>
<p>If she has some of these skills mastered before she gets to campus, it’ll help make the transition a bit smoother.</p>
<p>Any skills like laundry, cooking, cleanning.,etc. are irrelevant in college. Even handling financial situations, they do care about $$ when they start making their own. Kids thrive and blossom without these skills. Important: study skills, ability to organize time and things, priority setting, social skills, accepting personality, desire to help and be involved and work very hard to reach one’s goals, deep understanding why they are at college to begin with. It takes 1 min. to learn how to use washer / drier, which are different at school anyway. Do not waste time teaching what could be learned on a fly.</p>