OT -- Kids and money (& kids in general)
My $.02.
What has worked very, very well for my daughter (15 years old) is "Give the kid informed choices".
A suggestion: Consider telling your young that you have set up this account. You'll be willing (eager) to bore them to death with details anytime they want to talk to you about it. If you're willing to shell out money for certain expenditures, list them.. e.g.
Buy first car (perhaps when they become gainfully employed, need it for college (NEED, not WANT), etc).
Help with down payment on 1st house (buy first house?).
Schooling for grandchildren...
etc.
If your willing to turn over entire responsibility to them, state in very clear terms what the conditions are, if any. For instance...
has to be X years old
has "made own way" for Y years
has taken your tutelage for Z years in investing.
they manage the account (buy/sell) but it remains in your name for W years.
whatever other conditions you want to put in there.
Young can consider it a job, they're getting paid for it, aren't they? It's perfectly reasonable to create a contract that they must fulfill to get the rewards. I'd suggest putting it in writing for future reference though, avoids confusion later... I think it's important that your young *have control* over fulfilling their parts of the contract (obviously, if one of your conditions is that they turn 25, they can't hurry it up!!!).
One other thing, if you do anything like the above, be clear that this is to increase YOUR comfort level. I've always found it useful to avoid anything that sounds like "it's for your own good". That's what they told the tom cat before his operation...
Finally, it's their life, their decision, their responsibility. If you take away the responsibility for consequences, you take away their ownership of their own life. They'll resist (I know I did) and rightly so. So, my last advice is that once the decision has been made, LET IT GO. Take joy in your offspring's ability to live their own life instead of worrying about pleasing parents. Have you seen anything sadder than adults who *still* are looking for their parent's approval? Especially when they don't get it? It'll be much better for both them and you if they take your counsel, then make their own decisions.
BTW, free advice is worth what you pay for it <G>.
P.S. When I was growing up (and I didn't appreciate this for YEARS), my parents discharged their parental duty when I was doing something really stupid by telling me (once) why they thought it wasn't in my own best interests. Then they shut up and didn't tell me "I told you so" the times I fell flat on my face. This made it much, much easier for me to stop doing what I was doing sooner, didn't need to PROVE them wrong in the same way I would have if they kept bringing it up....
Anyway, as you can tell you've touched a spot several of us consider very important, as evidenced by the replies!!
All the best
Erick
P.S. Kids ARE resilient. It's amazing how many of our mistakes they survive <G>.
P.P.S. I'll be glad to exchange PMs with you if you want.....
P.P.P.S. The above notwithstanding, I am completely aware that what works with one child may not work with others. Nothing above may be reasonable for your family, I offer it only as a statement of what has worked well so far with my only child... |
