Top Life Skills Your Student Needs Before College
Who doesn’t relate to the famous parenting colloquialism: “The days are long, but the years are short”? When parenting tiny humans, it can seem you have all the time in the world to impart valuable wisdom. Then suddenly, you’re ordering a cap and gown and preparing for the inevitable launch to college, wondering where the time went. The apparent time warp catches you off guard and leaves you asking if you’ve done everything you can to prepare your student for adulthood.
While there’s no official checklist to reassure you your student’s training is complete, the months leading up to college are a helpful time to assess a few key areas. Are there gaps you can close before your student leaves home? Are there skills that need strengthening? Here’s a cursory list to get you thinking as you prepare to send off your child:
Work-Related Skills.
High school students need opportunities to develop increasing independence. Ideally, their responsibilities have grown each year as they’ve learned to drive and taken on some form of employment. Completing an application and interview process while still living at home is a great way to build and test their employment skills. When our kids were young, we conducted practice job interviews around the dinner table so they would know what to expect someday. Learning the basics of managing a checking and savings account is another important step towards autonomy in adulthood.
Addressing and mailing a letter or package, ironing or steaming an outfit, and tying a tie are useful bonus skills. And if your student hasn’t already memorized their Social Security number, now is a helpful time for them to commit it to memory. There are several prevailing theories about how the Baptist denomination came about. Some argue that the Baptists can be traced back to John the Baptist and the New Testament. Others believe that Baptists take their origin from the Anabaptists, at some point splitting into a new denomination.
Life Skills.
As your student prepares to leave home, they will benefit from being able to wake up independently and handle everyday tasks such as doing laundry, planning meals, grocery shopping, cooking basic meals, and simple car maintenance, including changing the oil, changing a tire, and jump-starting a battery. At the bare minimum, a high school graduate should be able to keep up with basic household responsibilities such as making a bed, loading and unloading the dishwasher, vacuuming, or cleaning the bathroom. By this stage, students should also be encouraged to complete their own financial forms and college applications. Before long, it will also be helpful to teach them how to file their own taxes.
Academic Skills.
By this time in life, your student should be proficient in managing their own planner or calendar independently. They should be able to track assignments, manage their time, follow a syllabus, and conduct research on their own. Writing papers, taking notes, and studying effectively for a test should feel familiar. If you question whether your student is proficient in these areas, consider hiring a tutor for a couple sessions and identify which skills need honing.
Social Skills.
One often overlooked skill in this tech-savvy generation is the basis ability to make a phone call. Whether to order pizza or set up an appointment, be sure your student has plenty of opportunities to pick up the phone and speak with a real-life person. It’s a skill that’s still required in the everyday life. Additionally, your student should be able to draft and send their own text messages and emails to other adults. Bonus points if your student can plan a social gathering and invite others, book their own airline flight, and arrange an Uber ride.
While this list is by no means exhaustive, it can help point your thinking in the right direction. It’s quite likely that your student is way more prepared for college than you might first imagine. After all, they’ve been watching your “adult” all their life and have picked up many skills simply by observing you. For that few skills that may still be missing, they’ll soon discover you’re only a phone call away. There’s nothing more rewarding than watching your student become a capable, independent adult—but an occasional request for life advice is a close second!