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  • How will she survive?

    Tuesday 27 September 2011

    Categories: Growing up, Higher Education, Letting go, Teenagers

    Apparently research shows that many university Freshers lack basic life skills, having never before cooked, cleaned or shopped for food. The Independent 26/9/11 We are clearly meant to find this shocking but if we think back to our younger selves could we have said any different? Like nearly 70% of those questioned for Sainsbury’s research I certainly hadn’t paid a utility bill when I was 18. It’s true that, unlike one in five of them, I had cleaned a bath but I too hadn’t done my own ironing like 13% of them.

    In their first year most students will be living in halls of residence so won’t have to clean their own accommodation. The fact that they have got into university means that they are intelligent so mastering the controls of a washing machine shouldn’t be beyond them. Moving away from home for the first time and acquiring new skills is a large part of what university life should be about. It’s a wonderful opportunity to make mistakes without serious consequences. Nobody died from my appalling early efforts to cook before one of my friends finally decided to teach me some basics, probably in self-defence!

    Of more concern are their financial skills but here the research results are more reassuring. Nearly three quarters of the respondents had budgeted for themselves; nearly 90% had set up a bank account and had opened a savings account.
    It’s always worth reading results of such surveys with a critical eye. After all if 20% of new university students have never washed their own clothes that means that 80% have. And it’s hardly surprising that nearly 70% have never paid rent since most have been living at home. As for the 14% who have never boiled an egg – so what? Unless things have changed even more than I think, boiled eggs aren’t a staple of students’ diet.

    So what messages should parents take from all this? That their fledglings would benefit from knowing how to cook a few healthy meals. Being able to knock up tasty pasta-based dishes, in large quantities, will make them appealing to their fellow students. Knowing that separating their washing into coloureds and whites will stop them wrecking too many of their clothes. They will learn soon enough where to shop cheaply and so what if they don’t iron? A few wrinkles aren’t going to stop them gaining the knowledge, experiences and skills that will make their university years some of the best of their lives.

    Posted by Alison Morris

Your comments

Surely one of our resposibilites as parents is to equip our children to be independent adults therefore giving them opportunities to practice ‘life skills’ such as learning to cook and manage their finances is one of our responsibilities as parents of teenagers. Don’t assume that all students in halls have the cleaning done for them, in many halls the students are resonsible for keeping their rooms and communal areas clean. Knowing that my son could cook etc was one less thing for both of us to be ‘stressed’ about when he went to university.

Like the previous correspondent my greatest concern was the drinking culture.

By SJE on Friday 14 October 2011

The biggest problem is the appalling culture of drink which is fuelled by “Freshers’ Week” and colluded in by the universities.

By Renny Gye on Friday 30 September 2011

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