Leaving home for the first time as a young adult can be a daunting prospect - not least for anxious parents left behind.
So what can parents do to ensure their kids are well-prepared to face the real world?
TV presenter and proud dad Pio Terei is a pou tangata (supporter) of the New Zealand charity Parenting Place.
He speaks to Kathryn Ryan about some of the important life skills parents can impart to their children.
Pio Terei Photo: Supplied
Terei knows all too well what it’s like to send your kids off flatting - all three of his sons have now moved out of home.
It might sound old-fashioned, Terei says, but we shouldn't underestimate the value of good manners.
“The big thing for us, we just wanted our kids to be polite, to be accepted into places, to be liked by other people and for them to have that have that experience they had to have manners.”
Doors open for a young person when you can look someone else in the eye, shake their hand and repeat their name, he says.
Teaching young people to let go of an ‘us and them’ mentality is another way to help set your kids up for the world.
“I wish I'd learnt this earlier in my life that when you see someone who’s different than you or...doesn’t automatically fit the ‘tribe’, wouldn’t it be great if our rangatahi, our tamariki, our kids’ first question wasn’t ‘who are you?’ but the first question is ‘what’s your story?’.”
Learning this allows you to open someone’s heart and mind, Turei says.
And it’s important that parents lead by example.
“We’ve only got 20 seconds to connect with people and if we give our rangatahi those skills by the way they stand, the way they smile... it can take you a long way.
“What happens is they get into that comfort zone of their own whare and they experience that unconditional love that all our kids should get, and they can just drop their guard.”
On the practical side of things, he says learning how to budget, how to cook and how to shop for groceries are skills that go a long way when someone first goes flatting.
Kai is a love language, he says.
“Not only do you feed the puku of your whānau around you in your flat but you become very popular."
“What a beautiful way to promote whanaungatanga [kinship].”
