[AD] How Well Prepared is Your Child For Heading Off to University?

During the month of September many parents, including myself, saw their children leave home for the first time to start university. For parents and children this is without doubt an anxious and stressful time. There’s so much to do and organise. The perfect way to make sure your child is prepared for university is to have a uni checklist.

It’s a huge step for our children as they make their move to university. I imagine it must be very overwhelming as well as exciting for them. The big question all parents will be asking themselves is how prepared they will be for university life and the realities and responsibilities that brings with it.

For example, do they know if they need a TV Licence to watch TV in student halls or how often they should be changing their bedsheets? After all, the chances are they have never had to think about these things before. 

To help our children find out how prepared they are for university, I’ve teamed up with TV Licensing (TVL) to do their Family Quiz which tests their preparedness for university. Through the quiz, TV Licensing aim to support, educate and help students understand their responsibilities when it comes to needing a TV Licence, so they’re covered to watch all their favourite TV shows. 

We as parents are here to help our children as they head off and begin to live independently from us for the first time in their lives. 

The TVL quiz is split into two rounds. Round one is a question-and-answer format which will test their knowledge of living independently and of university in general. Round two is an answer match format to test as parents and children how aligned we are on some specific topics. 

In round one when asking my son, the questions I was shocked about his knowledge (or lack thereof). What I considered a given, he didn’t know the answers to. Question 1 was how often do you change your bedsheets/towel? His answer was once a month… This is sadly a bad reflection on myself because he has obviously never noticed the bed sheets being changed at home and he was genuinely surprised that it’s recommended once a week. 

Another question was do you need a TV Licence in student accommodation. He was honest and said he wasn’t sure. His reasoning behind this was because he watches a lot of streaming channels such as Netflix and YouTube. 

The answer is yes. You need to be covered by a TV Licence to watch or record programmes as they’re being shown on TV or streamed live on an online TV service. And that’s not just the BBC; it’s all channels on any platform and on any device. You also need to be covered to watch BBC iPlayer.

In round one my son got around 75% of the questions right. It was great to hear that he knows how to cook and won’t starve while at university! 

In round 2, questions were designed to see how aligned we were with each other.

Interestingly we were both very surprised at how in-tune we were. For instance, question 2 was how many times a week will you call home? We both instantly said once, which would become less as time went on. 

Another question was what the first meal will be that you cook at university and again we both said pasta without hesitation! Another question was what item from home are you most likely to take with you? We both said his Xbox! 

Out of ten questions we only differed on two questions, so it was comforting that I have a pretty good idea of my son’s habits and interests.

After doing the quiz together I was very satisfied that my son is ready for university and start independently living and dealing with new responsibilities that university brings. It hopefully means we have prepared him well for this new chapter in his life and I can’t wait to see what he gets up to next.

Do you have children thinking about heading to university? How prepared are they? I would love to hear in the comments below.

This post is a collaboration with TV Licensing. All thoughts and opinions are my own.