If Your Parents Didn’t Teach You Basic Life Skills, Read This

They’ll go your entire childhood without teaching basic life skills.

Then ask, “How do you not know these things already?”

They’ll micromanage every little thing you do.

Then criticize and shame you for not knowing how to do things on your own.

You couldn’t even ask a simple question without it somehow blowing up in your face.

So you stopped asking.

And now you feel behind in life, and like you’ll never catch up.

But you’re not alone.

Our community has people who weren’t taught how to:

– Clean themselves

– Drive

– Stand up for themselves

– Handle money

– Do laundry

– File taxes

– Write a resume

– Or even make friends

This is very common among children of narcissistic parents.

Because narcissistic parents don’t see their children as separate individuals.

They see them as extensions of themselves.

They care more about how you look than how you’re actually doing.

Teaching life skills?

That’s a nurturing act.

It’s centered around your growth, independence, and long-term well-being.

But narcissistic parents are fundamentally self-centered.

Their primary focus is always on themselves, not their children.

If something doesn’t serve them directly, they neglect it or block it.

And that includes teaching you the basic life skills you need to thrive as an adult.

So, you didn’t get the foundation you deserved, but you can still build one now.

One of our favorite ways to do this is through an exercise called Building the Basics.

Step 1: Create a List of Life Skills

The first step is to create a list of life skills.

You can use Google, YouTube, books, or even AI tools like ChatGPT to do this.

The goal here is to collect as many life skills as you can find, things like:

– Budgeting

– Personal hygiene

– Or time management

Step 2: Identify Which Ones You Struggle With

The second step is to identify which ones you struggle with.

Go through the list and highlight the ones you didn’t learn or struggle to use consistently.

This step is a judgment-free zone, so please be kind to yourself.

The goal here is understanding where your foundation has cracks, so you can begin to fill them.

Step 3: Select a Skill and Start Practicing

The third step is to select a skill and start practicing.

You can choose whichever skill you’d like.

But we recommend selecting the one that’s having the biggest negative impact on your life, and looking for small ways to practice it each day in low-stakes situations.

For example, we once worked with a woman who struggled with life skills like assertiveness, decision-making, and self-expression.

So for a while, she’d practice by going to cafes, bakeries, and food trucks, and ordering something — but then changing it at the last second.

It was a really creative way to practice those life skills.

But you can also start with simple things, like creating a budget if you’re not good with money, or planning out your evening if you struggle with time management.

There’s no right or wrong way to go about this as long as you’re practicing something.

Step 4: Reflect

The fourth step is to reflect.

Every time you practice a life skill, take 5–10 minutes afterward to ask yourself:

– How did it go?

– And is there anything I could do differently next time?

If the answer is “no,” great — that might mean it’s time to move on to the next skill.

If the answer is “yes,” even better — improvement is what healing is all about.

So just keep going through these four steps until the skill starts to come naturally.

Then move on to the next one.

Final Thoughts

If you need help with any of this, my team and I host free sessions all week.

You can click here to learn more.

Thank you for reading today’s episode the Unfilteredd: Narcissistic Families podcast.

My name is Juliana Akin. Your guide to overcoming the effects of narcissistic abuse. And I can’t wait to connect with you in a future episode.

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