What Do Do When Adult Child Continually Asks for Financial Help

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There is nothing like money to spark family feuds and emotional divides. Whether the conflicts come from giving too much or not enough, many parents and adult children find that money disputes are particularly divisive.

Some money mistakes can lead to ongoing conflict. Five of the most common include:

1. Financially rescuing an adult child repeatedly, setting up a pattern of dependency and expectations. A client recently described this endless cycle as "grown kids never learning financial responsibility and draining their parents dry." This pattern is not only detrimental to a parent's bank balance and to a young adult's autonomy. It can also impair the parent-child relationship. Several studies have found that parents whose adult children are heavily dependent on them—often with the parent offering primary financial support and housing—are more likely to suffer abuse from their children. Physical abuse toward elderly parents sometimes stems directly from the sense of dependence and powerlessness experienced by the abusive son or daughter. Even when abuse is not present, these feelings of dependence, frustration, powerlessness, and anger can lead to emotional distance.
2. Withdrawing all support too soon. The flip side of enabling dependence is acting on the assumption that since a child is now 18 or 21, he or she should be able to make his or her own way in the world. One young man told me that when he was 18 and ready to enroll in a college 500 miles away from home, his prosperous father gave him a bus ticket and $50 and sent him off with no other support for tuition and living expenses. Needless to say, the young man was struggling to stay in school. Given the costs of launching oneself into the world, many of today's young adults need a helping hand beyond 18 or 21. If parents can't afford to help financially, then providing a roof over an adult child's head can make a major difference in a young person's ability to make the transition to independence. There may need to be conditions to this help—for example, the young adult must be going to school and/or working or seriously looking for work—and it can be helpful to have a time limit in mind.
3. Giving money with an agenda. Some parents are quick to offer financial help, but with an agenda—and this rarely has a positive outcome. The strings attached may be that the parent wants to feel closer, to maintain power in the relationship or to have a say in an adult child's lifestyle and buying decisions. Once again, studies show that financially dependent adult children and the parents who still give them money report heightened tensions as parent and child may spar over how the young adult spends his time and money.
4. Lending money you can't afford to lose. Some adult children may be quite responsible about paying back parental loans while others tend to regard money from parents as a gift, even if a parent is very clear that this is a loan. Also, if the money is lent to alleviate a financial emergency, it may take the young adult time to start paying it back. So when lending money to your child, don't hold your breath waiting to be paid back or part with money you will need anytime soon.
5. Failing to make your own financial security your top priority. Before saying "yes" to requests for a credit card debt bailout, a down payment for a home, taking out parental loans for college or raiding your retirement funds or mortgaging your home in order to help an adult child, think again. Think twice, too, about cosigning anything. Losing savings, gaining a mortgage or taking on long-term debt in middle age or, worse, in the retirement years can be precarious to your own independence. Talking with residents at an active adult community is an eye-opener: Many tell the sad stories of friends and neighbors who have lost their homes and life savings due to an inability to say "No" to an adult child's requests or demands. Young people can get loans for college. They have the time and potential income to save for a home or a new car. There are no loans for retirement.

To be sure, it can be a pleasure to help our kids. But there is a limit and each of us has a different one. Some are willing to make major sacrifices in their own lifestyle to help their adult children. Others, for the sake of their own financial independence, need to be saying "no" to many of their children's requests for help. You need to make sure that your own debts are paid, that you have an emergency fund and that your own retirement savings are growing. Maintaining solvency in your later years will be a blessing not only for you but also for the adult children who will appreciate not having to support you financially—though they may well do so emotionally—in your later years.

References

Szydlik, Marc, Intergenerational Solidarity and Conflicts. Journal of Comparative Family Studies 30, no. 1 (2008): 97-118.

Luescher, Kurt and Pillemer, Karl, Intergenerational Ambivalence: A New Approach to Study of Parent-Child Relationships in Later Life". Journal of Marriage and the Family 60, no. 2 (May 1998): 413-425.

Clarke, Edward J., et al, Types of Conflict and Tensions between Older Parents and Adult Children. The Gerontologist 39 (1999): 261-270.

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Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/complicated-love/201709/five-money-mistakes-parents-make-adult-children

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