Five things to learn before they go

The activity

In the last year at home, your teenager learns five things they’ll need when they leave, one at a time, in the order they choose.

What it is for. Before they leave home, a young person needs to be able to feed themselves for a week on a budget, keep track of their money, register with a GP and order a repeat prescription, find contraception and sexual health services, and get home safely at night. If your teenager learns them one at a time while they still live with you, any mistake happens while you’re near enough to help put it right. The list stays useful after they have gone: it is what you can help with from a distance, when your child asks.

• The first step. Write the five things down with your teenager: feeding themselves for a week on a budget, keeping track of their money, registering with a GP and ordering a repeat prescription, knowing where to go for contraception and sexual health, and getting home safely at night.
• For the GP, let your teenager book an appointment and go in on their own; the activity “Their first appointment on their own” goes through it in stages. For a regular medicine, let them order the next prescription themselves. For sexual health, look up together where the nearest service is, and leave the rest to them.

Safety. If your teenager is very drunk, stay with them and don’t leave them to sleep it off alone: they could be sick while drowsy and choke. If you think they have alcohol poisoning, call for emergency help, using the routes under “If you need help right now”. Spiking can look like being very drunk, and some drugs leave the body within hours. If you suspect it, get medical help early and report it to the police. The person who was spiked is never to blame.

When to get help. If your teenager or anyone with them is hurt, very drowsy or confused, unconscious, or may have been spiked, use the routes under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page, straight away. If your child has hurt themselves, or talks about not wanting to be alive, stay calm, thank them if they have told you, don’t promise to keep it secret, and act that day: help them ask the surgery for an urgent appointment, and if it is closed, use the routes under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page. If your child tells you that someone is hurting them, stay calm, thank them for telling you, don’t promise to keep it secret, and act that day, using those routes; if the person hurting your child lives in your home or your child’s other home, go straight to children’s social care or the police. If your child is badly hurt, or may have taken too much of a medicine, get medical help straight away, even if they seem well.

The other four steps, and your part in it, are in the library.

It goes with

• When They Leave Home. For parents whose child is about to leave home, or has just gone, for university, an apprenticeship, a job or a year away.
• When They Stop Talking to You. For parents whose teenager hardly talks to them any more.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full.

Free on this subject

• Leaving home. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.
• Transitions. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.