How to Teach Young Adults Without Boring Them

Guest Author
Jun 28
3 min read

Let’s be honest: the word “adulting” makes most teenagers roll their eyes harder than a Walmart cart with one broken wheel. But here’s the catch, they know they need it. They just don’t want it shoved down their throats by someone who thinks a fax machine is still a thing.

So the question isn’t whether we should teach life skills to young adults, it’s how to do it without boring them to death.

Welcome to the how-to guide for making adulting not just bearable, but actually… enjoyable. (Yes, really.)

Why Teaching Life Skills Matters Now More Than Ever

Between TikTok trends, digital overload, and a rapidly changing economy, Gen Z is navigating a world with more complexity and less practical guidance than ever before.

Most schools still don’t teach:

How to budget on $12 an hour
What to do when your credit score tanks
How to apply for an apartment or job
Or even how to cook rice (correctly)

And parents are often left trying to explain tax brackets while their kid is half-scrolling, half-listening. The result? A generation with Google-level access to everything, and practical understanding of almost nothing.

The Problem With Traditional Life Skills Education

Let’s break it down. Traditional life skills classes are often:

Lecture-heavy
Boring as stale saltines
Crammed with outdated info
Lacking cultural or digital relevance

When you’re trying to teach a 17-year-old about 401(k)s using a VHS tape from 1998, you’re going to lose them. Fast.

What Actually Works for Teaching Adulting (And Keeping Their Attention)

Bite-Sized Lessons Over Big Lectures

Gen Z thrives on short, digestible content. Think 3–6 minute videos, visual checklists, and templates they can use, not just read.

Tip: Use formats similar to YouTube Shorts, TikTok, or Instagram Reels.

Make It Relatable, Not Robotic

Skip the jargon. Tell stories. Be real.

Instead of saying:

“You must maintain a positive credit utilization ratio…”

Try:

“If you max out your credit card to buy Yeezys, your score’s gonna nosedive.”

Humor helps. Honesty wins.

Teach by Doing

Don’t just talk about budgeting, have them build one. Let them price out their dream apartment. Have them create a fake grocery list and stick to it under $50.

Make it real. Make it practical.

Incorporate Mental Health & Boundaries

Life skills aren’t just about bills and bleach. They’re about resilience, communication, and self-awareness. Today’s young adults need just as much help with:

Setting boundaries
Handling rejection
Managing stress they do with filing taxes.

Use Tools They Already Like

Want to build a Life Binder? Let them do it digitally with Google Docs or Notion. Need them to track expenses? Introduce a budgeting app. Don’t force them into systems from the ‘90s and expect enthusiasm.

Real Tools That Can Help

Want to skip building it from scratch? There are modern resources designed for young adults, not just about them.

Successful Adulting: The Real-Life Starter Kit is a self-paced online course that teaches budgeting, cooking, job skills, and confidence, in a way that actually keeps their attention.

Video-based
Downloadable worksheets
Customizable Life Binder
Real-world application

It’s everything we wish we learned in high school… minus the yawns.

For Educators & Parents: Your Role Is the Bridge

You don’t have to be cool. You just have to be relevant and real.

Whether you’re a teacher, parent, coach, or mentor, your job isn’t to have all the answers, it’s to give them tools, create safe space to fail, and model what being a functional human looks like (on most days, at least).

Final Thoughts

Adulting is overwhelming. But it doesn’t have to be awful.

When we make it engaging, honest, and applicable, young adults step up, because deep down, they want independence. They just need someone to show them the ropes without making them feel like a clueless child.

We don’t just raise responsible adults. We raise resilient, self-led humans who know how to handle life, and maybe even teach it forward.