Anonymous wrote:What are some things you wish your parents had taught you or that you're trying to teach your children?

My parents made me practice piano and study French for several hours a day, but they never told me to use soap (or made sure I had any) while showering, for instance, and they let me starve to death two small pets without seemingly noticing. They worked from home and I was an only child, so this seems incredible in retrospect.

I also wish I'd been taught to ride a bike as transportation and go camping, but those aren't necessary skills, just two things I feel intimidated by as an adult.

When I was about 8, my parents got me a bunny. Being a little boy with a short attention span, I did not feed the bunny and it died. My parents mocked me relentlessly for years, making fun of me that I had killed the bunny and that when I had taught the bunny to not eat, it finally died. This scarred me for years, as I was a sensitive kid. Now, as a responsible dad, if my children do not feed a pet I would see it as my responsibility to make sure the pet was fed. Although I loved my parents, I think they acted like irresponsible idiots.

Negotiating salary! OMG! My DH taught me when we were friends in grad school. I was totally unaware that people negotiated salaries.

Either I taught myself, or my friends taught me, almost every skill I have from riding a bike, to driving stick, to sewing, cooking, knitting, cleaning, eating properly/exercising, applying for a job etc.

The two big things I wish my parents had bothered to teach me are swimming and finances.

I learned to swim somewhat OK as an adult, but I don't have a lot of confidence or comfort in the water. I think that is an important skill to teach when children are young.

And it wasn't until my late twenties that I learned about budgeting or balancing a check-book or savings goals or anything like that.

I will definitely teach my kids about money. Understanding the terms of credit cards, student loans, etc was hard and expensive for me. My mom did teach me about the power of calling customer service- you pay your credit card late, call and ask for the fee to be waived, and that kind of thing. My husband didn't know this!

Anonymous wrote:I wish my mom had taught me how to clean and organize. She didn't know either, but I do wish someone had.

+1 I was going to write this. Some people make it look so easy, but I really struggle.

heh. my parents taught me all kinds of stuff but I am still disproportionately intimidated by stuff they didn't teach us, like:
- financial planning
- household repairs (just basic stuff that most people do themselves, I have ended up paying people to do - like snaking drains or patching up drywall or caulking the tub. it totally weirded out the handyman when I asked him to show me how to do stuff. superawkward. i have since resorted to youtube but you can't ask youtube dumb questions.
- things we stopped doing as a family early on. like, we used to all go sailing and fishing together. so, i have some basic competence in small tasks that i learned how to do when i was like 8 - i can bait a hook and tie some knots and cast a rod, and know what some of the parts are called on a boat. but i had my own interests by the time i was a teenager and so, i never really learned how to navigate. or what bait/lure to use where and when. and i certainly wouldn't be competent to sail on my own. anyway, i realize there are probably classes where i could learn all of those things. but it kinda sucks that my parents were so awesome at it! And i know nothing!

Anonymous wrote:Money management. It should be taught in schools, actually.

It is now, in Fairfax County high schools.

My parents did not teach me how to be a bitch and walk over people's heads.
I work in DC and need this skill.

To wash my hands. Seriously, they don't unless they've been doing something clearly dirty like working on the car. I figured out it was socially necessary to rinse my hands in public bathrooms, but I didn't get serious about washing until I had a baby.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish someone had to taught me to exercise in a self sufficient way. Team sports are great for a whole heap of reasons when you are young but I didn't learn how to exercise independently until my thirties because I simply didn't know how to put a plan together (and I was intimidated to try). It's been life changing.

? Why do you need a plan? Just get moving. If you had severely stupid coaches then I could see not knowing how to exercise, but presumably you would do things like run and lift for team sports unless you stopped playing at 10.

NP here, I never played team sports or had a coach. I did learn a hatred of running from a PE teacher who randomly decided we would all run a mile one day - no training, no warm up, and somehow it was "graded."

Anonymous wrote:
? Why do you need a plan? Just get moving. If you had severely stupid coaches then I could see not knowing how to exercise, but presumably you would do things like run and lift for team sports unless you stopped playing at 10.

The older you get, the better chance you have of injury. I mean if you go from 0-60 on your first day, you're probably going to hurt yourself, that's just common sense. We're not 18 anymore.

I'm going through this as well. I did a body weight workout with my legs for the first time in years and my legs were horribly stiff all week. I wish I would have thought to have stretched better or have done something else because I was walking around like a freak all week.

Anonymous wrote:I wish someone had to taught me to exercise in a self sufficient way. Team sports are great for a whole heap of reasons when you are young but I didn't learn how to exercise independently until my thirties because I simply didn't know how to put a plan together (and I was intimidated to try). It's been life changing.

I'm in your exact same boat. I never exercised much after high school, I always hated running for exercise and my metabolism until about 32 was good enough for me to keep a decent figure. But my metabolism plummeted after that and I've been looking for ways to get active. I've been doing pushups for the the last six weeks and it's getting easier every week. I'm gonna start working some more cardio into my workout including, gasp, the dreaded running.

You can do it!

Flossing
Money management (though that was not something they knew about enough to teach)
Encouragement to look early for summer jobs/internships (like not wait until summer already has started before trying to find something)
How to hold my own in social situations by having both intellectual and casual social conversations at home, without the TV and/or radio on 24-7.
Importance of writing thank you notes

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Money management. It should be taught in schools, actually.

Yesterday, I got an e-mail from CVS saying that I sure know how to save using my extra care card, and that I am in the top 8% who save the most using extra care card savings in Washington, DC! I'm surprised that I'm not in the top 2%.

You have to take a personal finance class before graduation in fcps.

Anonymous wrote:I wish someone had to taught me to exercise in a self sufficient way. Team sports are great for a whole heap of reasons when you are young but I didn't learn how to exercise independently until my thirties because I simply didn't know how to put a plan together (and I was intimidated to try). It's been life changing.

? Why do you need a plan? Just get moving. If you had severely stupid coaches then I could see not knowing how to exercise, but presumably you would do things like run and lift for team sports unless you stopped playing at 10.