My thirteen year old daughter was asked to take care of our neighbors’ dog while they are away. She was given a key to open their side door dead bolt to get in.

She called us saying it wasn’t working. We realized the kid has never used a key to open a door in her blooming life. As soon as she was feeling any resistance she would stop thinking she must have turned it far enough not realizing that was when it was engaging and just starting to actually move the bolt.

We talk her through that part and then she says the key won’t come out. She clearly doesn’t realize you need to turn it back to neutral zone to be able to pull it out. The whole process of talking her through it made us realize she had never used a key on a deadbolt in 13 years of life.

It got us talking about what other basic skills we need to think of and make sure our kids have. I have showed them how to change tires, how to do many things around the house and yard, but hadn’t thought of using a key to open a deadbolt and I am sure there must be a good list of other things we should figure out and teach them.

My wife said she heard about some guy who would cook his meat directly on the rack of the oven when he went to college and then have to clean the oven every time because he didn’t realize you should use a pan.