Helping your adult child attain financial independence

Having children and seeing them grow up in the various stages of life is an intriguing moment for parents.

Parents usually see to their children’s well being ensuring that they are well taken care of no matter how old they are. Little wonder a popular saying goes that one will always be a child in the hands of his or her parents, no matter the age.

Many parents tend to be confused about when to let their children to be financially independent. Will you continue to provide everything for your adult children because you don’t want them to go through financial stress?

When do you consider your children adult enough? People in most part of the world consider a child of eighteen a young adult already. However can a child of eighteen be considered an adult in true sense of the word? Can he or she meet up with the financial obligations of adulthood?

At eighteen in this part of the world, most young people are engaged in educational pursuit and need financial support from their parents. Some are yet to gain admission into tertiary institutions.

You can start to inculcate financial independence in your children at this stage by giving them free hand to manage the stipend you give them for up keep ensuring that they are accountable with how every amount given is spent.

When your child has graduated from tertiary institution and is engaged in one job or the other no matter how small it is,  you can have him or her responsible for somethings like paying the bills for his or her personal upkeep or even making little contribution to the house keeping. By this you teach him or her responsibility and a level of independence.

For adult children living on their own they must be truly independent in the sense of the word, making sure that they are able to pay their bills as some young adult crave physical independence from their parents but still desire that financial support from their parents.

Sometimes your  responsible adult child may sincerely need your financial assistance. You should be able to spell out the terms of such monetary assistance. Are you giving the child a money gift or a loan? You should spell out the terms of payment.

Children are different from each other and different approaches can be used to make them financially independent. If you have an adult child that is in the habit of demanding money for everything most of the time, you can refuse to indulge him or her except on occasions when the need is a dire and sincere one.

Refuse to be responsible for any debt such an adult child incur. If the child resort to borrowing he or she must be responsible for the debt because if you take the responsibility for the debt the child will entangle you into paying debt in cycles.

You can sincerely discuss with this child and have a financial talk with him on her on how to be financially responsible making it clear that he or she should be able to set financial goals to achieve.

Above all lead by example. Let your financial life be a life you will be proud of and one that you like your child to emulate.

Hope Ikwe.