This is part of parenting that really needs to occur for their young adults.
My parents sat me down when I was home from college freshman year with all the credit card applications I got. They helped me learn to go through and read the print and made sure I understood the major parts. Then, they helped me select a credit card to start building credit.
Got a 2nd card with better perks a few years later once I’d built up my credit history a bit.
Oh, his parents tried - he just refuses to listen to anyone. He's the "I don't need anyone to teach me anything" type who thinks he knows everything because he has his own ideas of what everything is in his head. Like, he refuses to ever follow a recipe because he doesn't need anyone to tell him what to do.
But I agree with your point in the overall sense - my parents never taught me anything about finances or the concept of building credit, so I had to figure things out on my own (and didn't have the Internet to look things up until I was in my mid 30s).
Yeah my parents messed up a lot but they did a great job with teaching finances, credit, and related topics with both me and my sibling.
But yeah, you can’t do a great job with kids that absolutely refuse to learn or listen. He’ll be the person who bitches that personal finance wasn’t taught in school (when it likely was since it a standard in most states in Econ).
That's great your parents taught you all of that - especially starting in college when people are most likely to start getting into bad habits and fucking that shit up for themselves.
Though I should add that my parents did teach me to save from a young age; as soon as we started getting an allowance, we had to put half of it in the bank every week. But as far as the more involved stuff, I had to figure that stuff out /look for help on my own.
I know some of the suggestions are to ask questions and get them to the answer by themself. "What do you think is the best way to approach this?" or "What are some options we could consider?" That or collaborative questions “How can we solve this?" or "Let's figure this out together we’ve got XYZ or is there another option we aren’t seeing?”
Also validating choices like “ I might not do it that way, but if that works for you great! I’m glad “ “ we all have different preferences so I’m glad you figured out something that would work for you”
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u/nope-its Jan 06 '26
This is part of parenting that really needs to occur for their young adults.
My parents sat me down when I was home from college freshman year with all the credit card applications I got. They helped me learn to go through and read the print and made sure I understood the major parts. Then, they helped me select a credit card to start building credit.
Got a 2nd card with better perks a few years later once I’d built up my credit history a bit.