If you look through my pages you will come across my manifesto for a University of Life – my plan to educate my Girls to be worldly-wise and chock-full of life-skills when they leave my full-time care. I put a call out to fellow bloggers- all as shocked as me that there are teenagers leaving home for the first time with no idea how to change a bed- to offer posts with suggestions for how to educate the latest generation. First up is Mary from Keynko.
*******************************************************************
When I packed Splosh off to university, I was never worried that he wouldn’t be able to feed himself, years of training and helping out in the kitchen would stand him in good stead! Not quite sure, given his record with the washing machine, whether he ever have clean clothes again, but seeing as he was in sunny Aberdeen, 500 miles north of us, at least I wouldn’t have to do it for him!
The children have always helped with cooking, since they were old enough to stand on a chair in the kitchen, they were there, mixing, measuring and always licking the spoon clean! I wanted to know that they would be able to manage o their own, and not just exist on pot noodles and beans on toast. But it’s not just preparing the food, it’s paying for it as well, so we worked hard to teach them the financial aspects of it all as well!
Money has always been tight in the house and we are great fans of meal planning, as it not only saves money, but avoids waste as well. So in the run up to leaving home we encouraged Splosh to take an active role in the planning process and would send him into the supermarket with a budget and ask him to shop for us all. He was encouraged to always look in the reduced cabinet, things that you might not need today can usually be frozen!
As he going away present from family and friend, I asked everyone to contribute to a recipe book for him. They each gave me a favourite meal and a personal message from them for him. We bound it all together in a book which would not only ensure that he had a balanced diet, but would be reminded of them as well.
And it worked! In his first year he whilst sharing a flat with 4 other lads, he was the one responsible for Sunday roasts and he was able to teach the others (who hadn’t had the same supermarket training) all about the famous yellow sticker, reduced dinner!
And now…..well his girlfriend tells me dinners are epic……he regularly leaves her meals in the freezer if he’s going to be away……and when he comes home, I don’t get a look in preparing dinner!
As for the laundry… well his clothes seem clean, so I guess he finally worked it out!
Mary writes at www.keynko.com, along with the rest of her collective. She blogs for Oxfam fashion blog and loves the opportunity to hunt through charity shops looking for unwanted treasures. As well as taking on board all her cooking lessons, Splosh has also followed in his mum’s footsteps with his own blog.
If you have a post to offer, relating to teaching life-skills, or think something should be on the University of Life syllabus, email kellyinnes@hotmail.co.uk with the subject University of Life. I’d love to hear from you.
Go on! You know you want to tell me what you think!