Your child will spend more than a decade in school learning reading, math, history, and basic scientific concepts, but they won’t learn everything. You’ll need to supplement your child’s education with the basic life skills to succeed.
Helping your teenager transition from early life into adulthood, what to do to set them up for success becomes crucial. The process of moving from child to adult comes with many challenges, but with the right adulthood tips, you can guide them smoothly through this change.
As your teenager transitions into teenage adulthood, they’ll still have plenty to learn, and they’ll look to you to learn it. Some things they’re just going to have to learn in the real world on their own, but you can help set them up for success with some foundational skills all teens to adults should have!
1. Time Management
Adulthood asks us to balance work, responsibilities, obligations, hobbies, and social lives. It’s a lot to ask, and maintaining a healthy life balance is a learned skill. Even the lives of teenagers can be jam-packed with school, homework, extracurriculars, after-school jobs, college planning, personal relationships, and more.
Effective time management means finding strategies to help your teen prioritize tasks and work efficiently. Talk with your teen about planning their day, making to-do lists, and setting goals. Teach your teen to do one thing at a time and give that thing their full attention. Use technology to your advantage. If you’ve got a technologically-minded teen, the right app might help them keep track of their schedule and manage outstanding tasks.
Set aside time every so often to review the recent past. Ask your teen to think about when things went well and when they could have gone better. This allows them to try new tactics and adjust. Remind them that things will go wrong, and that’s okay. And don’t forget to build in downtime. Pushing too hard for too long can lead to burnout, and teens (not to mention adults) need time to unwind.
2. Self-Advocating
Without you there to do it for them, your teen will need to be able to speak up for themselves, their opinions, and their rights.
Self-advocacy means knowing and enforcing boundaries, taking action, and making decisions to achieve goals. It means communicating needs and learning to ask for help when they need it. Advocating for themselves will help them succeed at school, in their jobs, and in everything they want to do in their adult lives.
To practice self-advocacy, involve your child in big and small family decisions and listen to their input. Empower them to ask questions and respectfully push back when they don’t understand something or find it unfair. Encourage them to come to you with their problems and try to help without judgment.
3. Decision Making
Even though you’re only a phone call away, you won’t always be there to help your kids make decisions. Let your teen make small decisions and let them feel the positive and negative consequences. As they near adulthood, help them transition to more significant decisions.
When the need for a decision arises, have your teen ask themselves these questions:
- What do I want to achieve?
- Why do I want to achieve it?
- What choices do I have?
- What are the consequences of those choices?
- How will this decision affect me and the people around me?
You can practice decision-making in a low-stakes environment by playing board games, discussing current events, and talking through questions about job or college choices.
4. Financial Literacy
As important as money is for moving through the world, many people enter adulthood without good financial literacy. A financially literate adult knows how to budget, manage debt, invest, and plan for retirement. Financial literacy will make your teen less vulnerable to fraud, too much debt, poor credit, or financial hardship later in life.
- If your teen has a job or an allowance, help them create a budget. Set a savings goal for something big, like a car of their own, and help them work toward that goal. This will help teach them critical financial skills they’ll use later in life.
- Set your teen up with a bank account if you haven’t already. Let them go with you to the bank and discuss what resources your bank or credit union offers.
- Educate your teen about interest rates, compound interest, saving for a home, bank fees, predatory loans, and other financial pitfalls. Good financial information can be found from various sources, including books, podcasts, or video content. Find the pathway that works best for you and your teen.
5. Grocery Shopping and Cooking
In many households, adults do all the cooking, which can cause a hiccup when teens become adults. The last thing you want is for your young adult to eat frozen pizza and ramen noodles for every meal. Discuss the value of variety and show your teen how to find recipes. Help them develop a basic collection of healthy breakfasts, lunches, and dinners they like.
Have your teen plan a week of meals, make a grocery list, go to the store, find their items, and checkout. Then, pick a couple of meals from the list for them to prepare. It’ll give them real-world experiences of feeding themselves from start to finish. You can also incorporate financial literacy into this activity by giving them a limited grocery budget.
6. Personal Grooming and Care
It’s essential your teen maintains good personal hygiene even without constant parental supervision. Without good hygiene, your child may suffer health-related or social consequences.
You may need to make adjustments based on your teen’s specific needs, but the basics of good hygiene include showering or bathing daily, using deodorant or antiperspirant, washing your face, using moisturizer, brushing and flossing teeth, and wearing clean clothes.
Speaking of clothes, if you’ve always done your teen’s laundry, they’ll probably need some guidance to do it themselves. Start early, have your child do laundry at home, and talk them through the process. Discuss the importance of water temperature, detergent differences, and how to use bleach, fabric softener, and dryer sheets. Take them to a laundromat and have them go through the process in case their first home away from home doesn’t have ready access to a washer and dryer. Don’t forget to remind them about the lint trap.
7. Basic Housekeeping
When you’re a kid, doing chores can feel like a punishment, but it’s a crucial part of adulthood. Your teen probably already knows about doing dishes, vacuuming floors, and cleaning toilets, but there’s more to housekeeping than that.
Teach your teen about sweeping and mopping, wiping down counters and other surfaces (refrigerator, oven, cabinet doors, etc.), dusting, cleaning windows, and getting into all the nooks and crannies where dust bunnies hideout. In addition to cleaning, your teen should know how to unplug a drain or toilet, replace a lightbulb, turn the water on and off, flip a breaker, turn the gas on and off, light a pilot light, change furnace filters, seal windows, and maintain smoke detectors.
Teach your teen about basic tools and how to use them. Every home should have a good hammer, screwdriver, and tape measure just to get started. Show them how to use a drill and other common power tools. Teach them proper safety when using tools, including eye protection and other safety gear. Technology is your friend, so remember you can learn a lot from a YouTube video.
8. Basic Car Care
Most teens can’t wait to learn how to operate a car, but they’re not usually as excited to learn how to take care of a car long-term. It might not be as exciting as a joyride around town, but knowing some basic car maintenance could prevent a breakdown or unexpected automobile repair costs.
Teach your teen to regularly check their car’s fluid levels (oil, coolant, wiper fluid). Your car’s fluids are usually easy to access and refill without much fuss or mess. Other valuable skills include changing a tire, jumpstarting a car, checking the tire pressure and refilling with air, replacing wiper blades, and replacing brake pads. If your teen isn’t comfortable doing certain maintenance themselves, talk to them about how to recognize when maintenance is needed and where to find help. Some places, like auto parts stores, will answer questions and provide guidance free of charge.
9. First Aid
Throughout your child’s life, they will inevitably get hurt or be nearby when someone else is injured. Teach your teen to treat basic injuries like sunburns, bug bites or stings, cuts, and scrapes. Show them how to recognize a concussion and what to do about it. Your teen should also know CPR, the Heimlich Maneuver, and how to stop bleeding.
Talk to your teen about the dangers of alcohol and drug use and what to do in the event of an overdose. In addition to a basic first aid kit, consider adding Naloxone, an over-the-counter nasal spray for opioid overdose, for your teen to carry and teach them how to use it.
10. Emergency Planning
An emergency can come out of nowhere. You can’t prevent or plan for disaster, but you can prepare for it. As an adult, your child may need to take care of themselves and others in the event of an earthquake, tornado, hurricane, wildfire, flood, or other disaster scenario.
Practice by creating an emergency plan for your family together. Make sure your teen knows what to do in the event of an emergency, who to contact, and where to go. Have an emergency kit with enough food, water, medication, and other crucial supplies to last a few days. Then, create a new plan for your young adult, helping them with the adulthood transition into independent preparedness.
By focusing on these tips on adulting and preparing for adolescence, your child will be better equipped for success as they move from child to adult life.
