Washing their laundry can be a new experience for many fresher students. This can be a source of anxiety both for the students and the parents back home, either because the student turns up with a terms worth of washing or the favourite piece of clothing gets ruined!

LAUNDRY

Do make sure that the budding student does know how to work a washing machine! It sounds all very simple but it is amazing how many are ill equipped to use the laundrette.

I actually took each of our children down to the laundrette with a load of washing and got them to negotiate the machine and working out washing instructions on labels and temperatures. Despite this our son still managed to wash a white T-shirt with his red football socks. At least he laughed and admitted the resulting "pink" T-shirt was his mistake!

Getting young people independent in this area is well worth it as too many washing disasters can be costly or hard work for their mum when they return with a whole term's washing!.