Lin – Your site sounds very interesting and you have mentioned some issues that my husband and I face. I’m very interested to see what other in those situations are doing.

J

From the emails and comments I get from parents struggling with adult children still living at home, not following any of the “agreed upon” rules and expectations of even helping around the house etc, more often than not having grown children living in the parents’ home has had extremely detrimental effects on both the parents and the “kids”.

Such as many grown adults who “planned” on only staying for a couple/few months because of one reason or another, are still living with the parents and not working at all, but are sleeping until 2 p.m. and not making any attempt to find/keep a job, help around the house, pick up after themselves, help with meal preparation etc, and parents write to me or comment about these high frustrating situations and ask what they should do.

These same “kids” manage to buy expensive cell phones and other techie gadgets, spend their money on fun and entertainment, are not paying any of the agreed upon financial contributions to the parents, and have saved zero dollars towards getting out on their own.

@Tiffanie, I must respectfully disagree. Waiting until children have reached the age of attending college to teach financial responsibility and money management is many years too late. From the time children are very very young, kids need to begin being taught the basics of money with more information built upon year after year, so that by the time kids are able to earn money on their own they’ve already come to an understanding about managing their money and making wise financial choices/decisions.

Then, when they are adults, they need to have full responsibility for their own spending/saving habits (and natural consequences for poor choices) rather than parents paying their adult child’s bills etc.

my sisters, on the other hand, didn’t get jobs until they were 19 and lived at home until around the same time. they aren’t going to college and they struggle to pay their bills. i don’t think they’re responsible (nor mature enough) to really handle being “on their own”.

i think that having a college student living at home would be a great time to start teaching financial responsibility. i know some parents who charge rent, i know some who don’t. my mother never would’ve charged rent, but we paid for our own cell phones and car insurance from day one. those were luxury items that my mom wouldn’t pay for, and i know that’s reasonable.

the only things i wish i would’ve been taught was to save better…not to spend every dime i made. those are invaluable lessons in responsibility.