I believe I’ve posted this previously, just not sure on this thread.
We have forced each of our three children to acquire what we feel are really some of the most basic life skills staged throughout their childhood. Interestingly, after Child A has been shown and then supervised, Child A would then show Child B the skill/task with Child B getting it at about 1 year earlier than Child A. Child B (son) did not so much teach Child C as much as Child C watched Child B and then started doing it on her own, at 2 years younger than Child A had… So really, we only had to teach Child A these things and then watch the development of B and C…wherein sometimes hilarity ensued and we’d ultimately have to clean up some pretty classic messes.
Anyway - S24 (Child B) starts at Purdue.
He’s living in all male dorm dominated by freshman STEM majors.
His triple dorm room had their bedroom space bed raised/lofted and the living space furniture from Walmart all planned out and assembled on his first day (Rubber mallet from home, Tape measure for the room space, his Kobalt tool kit from home). So someone from his floor walked in and saw it and asked if they could borrow his tool kit “Sure” (learning lesson number 1 - don’t loan out your tools without specifically saying, I’m coming for them in one hour etc). He had to go in search of them about 6 hours later - walked into the room and stuff wasn’t assembled very well so he chipped in. Then other rooms questioned him on, how did you know if “X” would fit… he pulls out the tape measure… “Can we borrow that?”… He’s now learned “Well, let’s measure one standard double room space, and write down the dimensions and put that diagram up on the common area wall for everybody” and also “When you go to Walmart, first stop is in the tool section and pick up a tape measure - then you can measure the furniture in the store without buying a tape measure… but you really should buy a tape measure…”.
Anyway, his first week he ended up doing room assembly for about twenty different kids who he said “Honestly, I don’t think a lot of them have ever swung a hammer or used an adjustable wrench - much less understand why you might need a screwdriver and a wrench or two wrenches at the same time…” . He’s having to explain why you need to be careful with an electric screwdriver (set on drill power) when putting in bolts and screws into the press / compression board furniture frames.
He tells us the first weekend, he was up early to get his laundry done (he actually listened to the - limited washer dryers…get you stuff in first thing and you’ll be done in under an hour… otherwise it could take hours). He’s done before his roommates even got out of bed, went to workout, stopped to have breakfast, was walking past the laundry room space and there’s a small group of students standing staring at the washing machine… including one of his roommates. He’s already walked past the room and his roommate yells out for him “Hey. You already did your laundry, can you show us how it works…” and he’s thinking they are asking like "how do you sign up for the laundry ‘app’ and put money on it so you can then electronically pay for it (I think he said all the machines or all but one or two were cashless). So he’s like okay fine - walks in and starts with, you put your code in here…
“where do we get the code?”
“why do we need a code?”
okay…so these machines take cashless payments, there’s a common app to download and then you can either allow it to pull money from your account in chunks or you can move money over yourself in chunks. Think of it like laundry Venmo.
“we have to pay for laundry?”
So he sets up the app on his roommates phone, has his roommate load $20 onto the laundry account and goes over to one of the machines and says - okay put your laundry in the washer… okay.. put your detergent in
“Detergent?”
yes, the soap.
“oh, I don’t have any”
okay… so on that wall over there you can use your laundry app to buy detergent for individual loads, but its cheaper to buy a bigger bottle of laundry detergent at Target or Walmart… and do you have dryer sheets… okay so right next to that you can buy small packs of dryer sheets and use those in the dryer.
So his roommate buys 1 small ‘pouch’ of detergent and like the 5 sheet dryer pack…
Okay so put the detergent into the machine…and his roommate is staring at the machine and then opens the door and is about to toss the detergent pouch (a foil pack) into the machine…
“ah, no… see this little flip door here…you tear open the foil pouch and pour it in here…”
and then his own light bulb goes off “Oh, and for the dryer, there is not little door for the dryer sheet - you DO put one sheet into the dryer with the wet clothes…”
This lesson with his roommate goes on for about 10 minutes, and what started with like 4-5 others watching him, by the time he is ready to leave, has turned into like 15 boys all listening and watching him intently on “How to wash your clothes” as though there’s going to be a pop quiz on it next session.
And apparently he gained a reputation at the dorm as the “guy” in “Oh, I have a guy who can do that” fame and would have other freshman stop him to ask him all manner of random questions, mostly on the DIY stuff but all sorts of subjects.
I found all this out because at the end of week two, we are face timing and he’s telling me about the laundry room situation… and all the broken press board furniture that he’s been asked to look at etc.
Now at the start of the convo I figure he’s exaggerating - but during our thirty minute call - he has a kid come into his room to ask to borrow his tool kit “Sure”… and in the frame behind him, the kid walks over, writes something down, picks up the tool kit and leaves… I’m intrigued.
“Oh, that’s my sign out list for my tool kits - I got tired of having to go find them. So I have a sign out sheet that tells me who has it, when they took it and where their room is - so when the next guy asks to borrow it, I can see how long its been gone and tell him to sign up and go take it from the guy whos had it too long…”
Interesting, and efficient.
Another kid comes into the video frame “Hey so-and-so told me you’re the guy who knows how to fix stuff…”
and now I’m just laughing. And I say, “Man, if your tools and your skills are so in demand, you should be charging for your work…”
Oh, he was, just not in $. He wheels his chair over to show me as he opened the dorm fridge and the bin drawer next to it. Full of energy drinks, soda, chips and candies…
Anyway. Based on the overall inputs from the parents in this group - I strongly suspect your kids will be the ones showing the others how to do “X” that they consider a middle school entry level talks… but will totally mystify one of their dorm floor members.
Reference Tips:
*Kobalt Tool Kit - Lowes and Home Depot have their own brands (Kobalt is Lowes) ‘first apartment’ or ‘first house’ tool kits that have most if not all the basic essential tools in one container (sometimes it’s a hard case, sometimes its a fabric wrap) but the tools are usually fitted into fixed locations -so you know if something is missing / what’s missing right away). And usually these are pretty inexpensive. Also, buy a coupe of small containers (or save some of the small ice cream or gelato containers (Talenti was the our brand of choice) to hold the screws, nails, bolts, buts,washers and other assortments that come with each ‘build your own project’… and teach them the first lesson “When you open the box, all these small bags of parts or free parts… don’t set them down… they immediately go into “X Container” first - so you know where they are and aren’t searching your dorm room floor for them…”)
*Measuring tape - sometimes this is included in the tool kit. If not, buy one and put it in the kit, along with a small paper notepad and a pencil or two (pre-sharpened).
- Rubber Mallet reference - a lot of you will have kids in dorms that have adjustable height beds - the bed support frame will be ‘hooked’ into the head and leg end frame. If you want to change the height of the bed (raising it or lowering it so you can put storage underneath or even put the desk or a futon under) you can (A) request it be done for you in advance by maintenance (Doesn’t always happen (B) while you are moving in you put in a request for maintenance to come and do it - but you may be in a ‘long line’ or (C) Bring your own rubber mallet from home and just pop the bed frame off the head and leg frames and then reset it at the new desired height, and use the mallet to pop it back into the secure setting. You can do it in 5 minutes or you might be waiting hours or days for maintenance to do it. * word of advice - once you do this, word will spread that you have a mallet… and people will come to you to ask to ‘borrow it’… send your child with them to instruct them (or their parent) on how to swing a hammer… and then get your mallet back. -or- it will have moved on through 10 more rooms before you realize it’s now become ‘community property’.