I 100% endorse this. Check the dates. Check the dates. Goodness, check the dates. The grocery store I shop at has a tendency to have foods a month before their expiration date still on the shelves. Yes, the food is fine to eat, but the stores I’m used to in my hometown have food farther from their expiration date than that.
One week I go grocery shopping, I pick up a bag of dried fruit. Come home, eat said food, and I spit out the pieces as soon as I bite into them. Nastiest things I’ve ever tasted. Check the date and they’re two months form expiration.Yes, they’re safe, but they tasted terrible. Turns out when I stopped back at the store a couple of days later all the shelves that had the dried fruit were replaced with newer packages.
Bleh. Check the dates and save yourself from disappointing and yucky food.
I must admit I can’t use a can opener to save my life but I have reasons.
Some produce that is packaged has dates on it too. Of course, they’re all good, but wouldn’t you rather have the fresher lettuce?
Also, meat that is on sale is often dated for that day as the last sale date. That can be fine, as long as you use it or freeze it soon after you get home.
Meats, vegetables, fruits, yogurts, cheeses, and the like I check, but pardon me for not expecting that the grocery store to sell old boxes of granola bars and gushers.
"CHECK THE DATES when you're buying perishables at the grocery!"
On the other hand, I know from many years working in the food business that many of the dates on grocery items are just suggestions, and you can eat them well past the due date.
[QUOTE=""]
[/QUOTE]
Yes, I know…particularly things like soup cans. Soup can dates are really suggestions…I think they can be fine for a long time after the dates.
And eggs and yoghurt aren’t usually “bad” right after the due dates. But, I don’t want to purchase dairy that is close or past the dates…and things like breads and other bakery items taste fresher if you buy them with the “best dates”.
Once milk is opened, it often will go bad before the due date.
Knowing how to use public transportation: finding the address of the place you are going to, finding if there is a route to take you there, determining based on frequency and distance when to leave to arrive on time, making sure you have a proper payment method, double-checking if the bus/train runs on early mornings/nights/weekends…
Found out that some people my age don’t know how to dice an onion. So, that as one that maybe your kid doesn’t know. They should know how to dice an onion.
I probably should know how to change a tire or do an oil change but I don’t.
I don’t think I’ve ever made my bed and I don’t ever see the need. I don’t care enough to try to impress people by having a made bed.
Another that I think people should be able to do but some of my friends don’t, how to iron clothes.
I’ve had to change a by the side of a road twice. It was handy to know how to do it and not be the damsel in distress but this was in the days before cell phones. Checking and adding oil is a simple task that can’t hurt to know. Adding windshield fluid is again a simple thing - the key being finding the right cap. I would also add changing the wiper is a nice thing to know. By 16, D also knew how to deal with a flat on her bicycle.
I guess I would say it’s nice if the child is comfortable using tools, including small power tools. D’s comfortable with the dremel, hand drill, jig saw and other power tools as well as a hammer, hand saw, and screwdriver.
This knowledge may not be essential but it does feel good not to be so dependent on others for simple tasks.
It’s sad to say but we need to teach them to doubt other people before we send them out. If they do take a car to school and bring it in for service and get hit with - you need a total flush of your expensive and unnecessary environmental control system - they can answer with - let me call my authority figure and get back to you - and then they get to watch the backpedaling (it works for me too!).
Drinks at parties, online offers, strangely alluring forms of employment (as shown in another thread), they need to doubt them all.
How to drive in extreme weather/driving conditions, make smart decisions.
Flash flood conditions. Don’t cross barriers. Turn around, not worth being swept away.
Icy roads, black ice.
Foggy conditions-tule fog in central California known for causing horrific chains reaction pile ups of smashed cars
How to drive in tricky traffic situations
Driving defensively, noting braking lights ahead, scanning the rear mirrors for cars too close to your bumper and coming too fast at you.
Anticipation of possible evasive maneuvers-noting the actions of the drivers ahead of you, changing lanes, slowing down, flashers on.
If someone is driving the wrong way towards you, immediately move to the far right, don’t be a deer caught in the headlights.
Keeping their wits about them in unpredictable driving situations.
1)It depends what the meal is. If I have to use the stove then no.
2)I know how to use the dryer, not the washer.
3)I know how to do some things, but not anything.
4)Can pretty much do anything as far as cleaning the house goes.
5)Yep, easily.
6)Jewish upbringing, piece of cake.
I am adding a skill. Reading proficiency. Some students claim they hate reading. Reading is kinda like riding a bicycle. If you don’t practice riding a bicycle, you won’t make it very far in either distance or time. If a student hates reading enough to avoid it (do not mean reading issues related to disability), then high school will be hard, the SAT/ACT harder and college really, really hard. Proficient reading with speed and accuracy also includes maintaining comprehension.
I taught an honors student who was given a reading assignment because of absences. I assigned Cheaper by the Dozen because that book was fun and relevant to the high school class.The student said the book was too long to read during the week she was out of class–Cheaper was about 200 pages. Reading difficulty is usually not associated with the length of a book
Reading also involves getting through boring texts. Successive generations have supported high school students reading Silas Marner because the rest of us had to read it. Reading comprehension and reading a boring book can be helped by reading aloud to oneself. Or, students reading to each other or family members reading aloud to each other.
One of the skills that students and many adults need to develop is changing reading speed and using active reading because of differences in the complexity of books. Reading Twilight is a very different experience than reading a chemistry text or professional reference book or even a really good novel. The first time I read a horn book ( law) my eyes fogged, I felt like my reading skills had evaporated. I went back and started re-reading and it got easier.
Learn how to highlight so main ideas don’t turn into a blob of color.
Use a dictionary to look up unfamiliar words and maybe even put a synonym over the unknown word.
Life is so much more pleasant when someone takes a good read along as standard practice, even better than a cell phone, at motor vehicles, car repair shops, or any where else waiting is long and boring; Silas Marner and
Russian novels should not be taken.
Really important skill also. Using Chili Magic, a product of Bush beans, to make a really good, cheap and fast meal. Plus, the cook can add all sorts of things.
Someone wrote about making phone calls to strangers. Making phone calls for doctor appointments and how to fill out the forms if they are a new patient. Son had to handle this himself his first semester away. he had an ear injury (cauliflower ear if you know what that is). He had to make an appointment, get there without a car, fill out the forms and do the follow up appt. He even had to go by himself to out-patient surgery to have it drained. All things he would have asked me to do if he was home, but he learned “on the job” so to speak, with a few texts from mom. I did have to deal with getting a referral from the local doc ( what a headache, I do not miss the HMO). If he wasn’t bothered by how it looked he might not have bothered. Vanity can be good!
As far as the car, do you think the wording was off and fix “anything” meant fix “something” not “everything”? S2 can change a headlight bulb, a taillight bulb, jumpstart (I think) go to jiffy lube and put air in. He could probably do more but we haven’t made him. Probably should. He learned how to do the bulbs because he knows its just another ticket waiting to happen and nobody likes being pulled over.
Both S will make dr appts if they have to now, but leaving their 6 month dental checks up to them is not a good idea. I just emailed S1 that it has been 9 months. I noticed while checking hubby’s dental payout for the year. S2 goes more willingly to dentist because he has experienced cavities. S1 has not had cavities, so he doesn’t know the pain of fillings, yet.
As far as laundry. Both kids starting do their own by age 12. They had plenty of clothes, but always complained that this or that wasn’t washed. I told them they had clean clothes and if they wanted certain ones clean they could do it. So they did. You learn not to mix certain colors by experience. Once you get pink underwear, you understand what mom was saying.
We have a top loading HE washer (cabrio). We all learned the hard way not to leave coins in the pockets. Especially dimes and pennies. They can slip through and clog the re-circulating pump that sprays the water while it is washing. The first time we removed it (not too difficult thanks to youtube), the second time the stuff was stuck on the washer side of the pump, had to pay a service call to remove 99 cents!
I had my car for 10 years and took it to get tires rotated recently, They asked me for the “key” for the wheel locks. I didn’t know it had wheel locks. Luckily, it was in the bag with the jack.
)