Every year, teens grow into graduates and start making plans to leave home. Whether they launch immediately or hang around the house for another few years, parents always have the same worry. Have you prepared them enough? Are they ready, and do they have the tools they need to live on their own? Of course, you’ll always be there to help out, but you want your graduate to have what it takes to proudly launch on their own and rock at solo-living.

One of the best ways to do this is to ensure they know a trade. Some trades are always in-demand, and many can be learned in only a few weeks of focused training. If your graduate can learn a life-long right now, before college or even their first job, in a career that is always hiring: that’s a pretty darn good tool to launch them with.

Here at Fred’s Appliance Academy, we’ve found that young people have a lot to gain from learning appliance repair early in life. Whether they work as technicians their whole life or simply carry the skills into every home and job, it’s a fantastic place to start. We’ve put together ten serious and fun reasons to send your graduate to appliance repair school instead of retail and waiting tables. 

1) They’ll Never be Out of Work

One of the greatest securities you can give your grown child is job-security. Teens don’t understand how important it is to always have a job available, no matter what the economy or regional trends might be up to. Appliance repair is a great way to ensure your child will always have a paying job ahead of them.The demand for appliance repair is relatively constant. Every home must have appliances to be considered modern-livable. Those appliances need maintenance and repairs several times each before they give up the ghost. That means anywhere there are people with washing machines and ovens, there will be work for appliance-repair technicians. And there are never enough technicians to go around. 

2) Useful Skills that Last a Lifetime

Appliance repair is also a skill that won’t be outdated any time soon. Programming languages come and go, but circuit boards and plumbing are forever. If your child knows how to tighten a loose wire, secure a leaking pipe, and replace a broken door-switch, those skills will serve them well for the rest of their life. The nuts and bolts of appliances have stayed the same for decades. And at appliance repair school, your graduate can learn it all while working with the cutting-edge equipment in hands-on lessons. 

3) Always Helpful Around the House

Not to mention, once your graduate knows how to repair appliances, they have no excuse not to help around the house. After you send a young person to appliance repair school, you’ll be able to ask them to fix the rattling dryer or the leaky dishwasher any time they’re hanging around the house. Start asking for regular repairs and see whether your home gets in top-shape or your child is suddenly well-motivated to find their own place. 

4) Better Equipped for Living Solo

When your graduate does move out, consider how much more comfortable you’ll be, knowing they can fix a dishwasher and troubleshoot an electric stove without causing floods or fires. Your child will be infinitely better equipped to be first a responsible renter, and then a capable homeowner. They will be able to fix their own appliances and also quickly identify when an appliance has fully gone kaput. This is a young adult who won’t panic when the oven won’t stop clicking or when the washer water line springs a leak. 

5) Less Likely to Electrocute Themselves

Another positive note, once someone has learned appliance repair, you don’t unlearn those safety lessons. Appliance repair drills a few basics into your skull from day-one. The first basic is how not to get electrocuted. What parent doesn’t dream of a child who will turn off the breaker and wear work-gloves before prying open their dryer or inspecting an outlet?

After learning appliance repair, your child is infinitely less likely to ever accidentally electrocute themselves or someone else. And that is always a blessing. 

6) Instilling Confidence in Self-Capability

One benefit often overlooked when teaching young people trade is the confidence it instills. Higher education takes a long time, with much patience and hard work before a career can begin. But appliance repair is success-after-success once the skills are learned. Graduates who are still, essentially, uncertain teenagers can learn to be confident in themselves and what they can do with their hands.

When you can take a broken machine and make it work again, there’s a special feeling of accomplishment that many young people really need. Especially when they are taking those first steps out of the house and into their new adult lives. 

7) A Skill that Makes and Keeps Friends

Let’s not forget to mention just how great appliance repair is for making friends. Or at least starting friendships and keeping those friendships strong. The first time your child has a friend or roommate with a broken refrigerator is soon to be a new friend. It only takes fifteen minutes of chatting and tinkering, and then the reveal of a freshly-working appliance to win some positive vibes. And who doesn’t want to keep a friend who can fix stuff while you share a pizza? 

8) Impressing Potential Partners with Homemaking Skills

Of course, that swings the other direction as well. Both men and women respect a partner who’s willing to get their hands dirty, and then actually fix what was broken. When your graduate is out there building their new life, appliance repair is a pretty good way to break the ice and impress someone special with their capability. It might even get others thinking about long-term household usefulness. 

9) No More Excuses Not to Leave Home

As we wrap up, we know what you’ve really been thinking. Once a highschool graduate has learned a paying trade, they have no excuse to keep hanging around the house. Appliance repair certainly pays the bills and even starting out can provide a young person with enough funds enough to get an apartment with friends and start collecting those essential young-adult experiences.

Whether your graduate will be working their way through college or launching from the get-go, appliance repair is a great skill to help them launch. 

10) Equipping Your Graduate With the Tools They Need for Success

Every parent wants to equip their graduating teens with the tools for success. You can give them a toolbox full of all the most useful home basics. you can send them with practical advice, a cookbook of easy recipes, and a good quilt. But sending them to appliance repair skills will give them a skill that will teach independence and a career they can always rely on.

—Here at Fred’s Appliance Academy, we offer 2-week and 3-week courses with on-site housing to provide new technicians with the best possible foundation for learning. Appliance repair school can become like your graduate’s final launching year of summer-camp: A few weeks away from home to learn independence and trade that will last a lifetime. Contact us today to find out more about our courses and appliance learning experience.