Kids still write checks? Don’t they all use mobile payment app such as Zelle or Venmo? I don’t even remember when was the last time I wrote a check.
Yes, some landlords still prefer checks.
Found another life skill that is hard to teach a colour blind kid: cooking.
Kid, on the phone: mom, the sausages dad told me to fry up taste funny. I can’t tell if they’re done. Me: yes, you can tell by checking whether they’re still pink inside…sigh, no you can’t, actually…(we discussed heat of the fat and looks on the outside and I hope the sausages were all right in the end).
We’ve already covered how to tell fruit are ripe or not. Meat will be harder…
Money management is the biggest skill. Made my D’s open up Roth IRA’s when they got their first summer job and when they were little and getting an allowance we actually drew up a contract that said what the pay rate would be for certain tasks and it had a stipulation of 50% of their earnings was to go to their savings account and the other 50% was their discretionary to be spent on what ever they wanted. I actually was just thinking about getting the oldest one a subscription to Quicken since she is old enough to have a stand alone banking account and getting her into the habit of tracking her spending via Quicken and starting to use the budget tools.
“Found another life skill that is hard to teach a colour blind kid: cooking.
Kid, on the phone: mom, the sausages dad told me to fry up taste funny. I can’t tell if they’re done. Me: yes, you can tell by checking whether they’re still pink inside…sigh, no you can’t, actually…(we discussed heat of the fat and looks on the outside and I hope the sausages were all right in the end).
We’ve already covered how to tell fruit are ripe or not. Meat will be harder…”
Um, I am sure being color blind has its challenges but for goodness sakes buy the kid a good quality meat thermometer. It’s a much much better and effective way of judging if meat is done for anyone. Not being able to see color is frankly irrelevant.
They still have to write a check for rent where my second son attends as their website is messed up and they had to put down deposits etc. He was 20 and the apartment manager had to show him how to write a check (I did not think he would need that skill). Ha!
My kid has written excactly one check ever. For a rent deposit. After that she had chase send the checks ( Chase will send a paper check to anyone you want…you don’t have to wrote it yourself.) This is a rare enough occurrence to not be a necessary life skill. Especially because doing what my kid did takes about 1 minute: google ‘how to write a check’
Mine had to write a check for her chorus dress. Hopefully her first and last- it was painful to walk her through it!
I visited kid a few weeks into first year when she had to 1) submit a passport renewal app 2) pick up a Rx at the pharmacy with insurance card and 3) arrange for counseling at the student health center. Those were all daunting in different ways but I stayed on the sidelines (or in the case of the pharmacy, outside on the sidewalk) so she could walk through all those steps herself.
My D wrote checks to the ‘house parent’ - the parent who would then write ONE check to the landlord (who would only take one) and to the utilities (or pay them online). I don’t think that mom had a credit card option. We actually liked the check options. I’ve had to write checks for her to a doctor for the remainder of a bill and they are usually for $10-$15. Sure, she could drive over to the office and pay, but it is just easier to send a check.
A lot of places will take a credit card but charge you a fee if you charge - like for tuition!
I don’t write many checks, but do for things like club dues or if I need to repay a friend for getting tickets to something. Right now I’m writing one every month for some tires I charged because there was a 10% rebate if you used the inhouse charge. I don’t want to set up online payment for 4-5 checks. I just send them checks.
Life skills. 1) How to do laundry. 2) How to make coffee. 3) How to balance a checkbook (and the importance of doing this). 4) How to keep drinking within limits, and what to do if you exceed the limits.
There is literally no need to ever balance a checkbook. Your online bank account will do that for you so long as your payments are electronic or by bank generated check, which for most millennials 99 percent of their transactions are or can be. I have not blanced my checkbook in more than a decade and can’t imagine any reason to ever do so again.
I also told them to go to the gym 3 days a week for stress, how to make easy meals, how important a haircut is every 1-2 months, how to take the car in for an oil change, and how important it is to be kind…no matter what.
As I reflect on the prompt some more I recall that when I went off to college one of the important skills my Mom taught me was how to use an iron! I took a small iron with me to get those collars flat! Of course technology has changed our relationship to our clothing. Another change is in handling money: how to balance a checkbook?? Not any more. But how to budget and to avoid penalties in borrowing and overdrawing cash is still important. It’s something that cost a lot in overdraft penalties to my daughter’s accounts until she learned – and until we got rid of the account that she had with a bank near her campus, and brought her “home” with an account in our own credit union.
Here is a timely one I can add: how to turn the water off to an overflowing toilet! Apparently, the girl who lives in the apt above my D noticed her toilet was overflowing last night so thought she would just put a towel around it on the floor. The girl woke up to a flooded bedroom and bathroom and this morning my D noticed water dripping through her closet ceiling into the closet light. My D was the first to call maintenance. ~X( There is a huge truck there now trying to pump out all of the smelly water. Ugh.
I have making a list lately to try to get those lessons in before college begins. Some of the lessons are just reminders others are teaching the whole item. Here are some of mine
budgeting
advocating for yourself
communication
making friends freshman year
safety in numbers
laundry
light cooking /microwaving/ devices like instapot or crockpot
banking/ atms
voting by mail
writing and mailing packages, stamps, thank yous
tips for unclogging a toilet
plunging toilets
what ID and the like to keep on them or in their room
cleaning of toilets, counters, showers for shared private baths
sewing a button or hemming a loose hem
reading,signing and keeping a copy of important legal docs or contracts
how to order a taxi/ UBER/ Lyft
AAA or the like
public transportation if used in and around the campus
apologies
roommate issues and solutions
relationship with professors
negotiating and conflicts
balancing social and academic /time management
apartment renting for later
health and wellness
interviewing and resumes for college jobs
stress management
when to seek help from RA, parents or others
@readthetealeaves That’s a great list. Thanks for sharing.
My mom taught me how to iron clothes. I brought a small travel-iron with me to college. She also gave me some signed blank checks that I could use when I needed cash: I would go to the college bursar and write out the amount, typically $20 or $25.
That’s about it! I prepared for starting college by reading a book about time management in college. That was helpful. One piece of advice: plan on spending 2 to 3 hours outside of class per week for every hour in class. So a 3-hour course meant 6 to 9 hours outside reading or doing homework. By extension, a 15-hour class schedule implied 30-45 hours on homework. Add the in-class and out-of-class hours together and a typical working week would be, well, a LOT of hours.
In my work life as a professor, I’ve sometimes responded to graduate students who complained that they had little spare time that there are 168 hours in a week (24 x 7). So even if their classroom and homework time added up to 70-100 hours per week, they still had a LOT of time for sleep and recreation. They just needed to manage their time.