Good Parenting...Who Knew?

[sabrinamari]

When I starting listening to "The Millionaire Next Door," I did not expect to receive parenting advice.

Since Michael and I met, I've had some definite plans about Trent's college years and how I want to help him meet his goals as a young adult. Michael has had a few plans too, and boy, were they different.

What this book taught me, based on the research team's findings, was that I was all set to make a series of colossal mistakes. Michael, though, had it right.

And if Trent had been a girl, my strategies would have had the potential to REALLY screw up her head and cripple her independent spirit and her life.

So, if you are parents, or are planning to be parents soon, please read or listen to this book.

If you have a daughter, get this book TOMORROW and read/listen it!

The chapter that opened my eyes was the chapter on "Economic Outpatient Care", which is really a chapter about parenting, and helping your children become strong, free, independent and self confident.

Comments

[thicknwild.livejournal.com]

wow, if i may ask, what were the plans you had lined up and what were michael's?

i'm just curious to find out what could have had such destructive potential as opposed to what didn't.

obviously, i'm a parent now and i'd like to know and learn from these first hand experiences of others.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

The short answer is this: I've been a big believer in economic outpatient care (cash gifts, lots of $ support, keeping kids home during college and minimizing things that might distract them from school---work, etc.). Many smart people share this set of ideas. The researchers who wrote this back walk through their data systematically to show how parents who took this approach succeeded in weakening children who needed help becoming more self-sufficient and independent, setting siblings against each other and making their children's lives harder.

they give very specific case examples to show you exactly how this works.

Their data supports the idea that if you want to help your kids---especially your daughters---grow up self confident, independent and powerful, you need to use an entirely different set of tools: tools that help them learn to take on scary tasks, like making money for themselves, with lots of emotional and intellectual support. By trying to make things economically easier for them, you are quite likely to take away the opportunities they need to work hard, tackle genuinely challenging problems, and figure out how to win. Without this knowledge, it's too easy to maintain dependency on parent's money, never developing the skills and confidence to really believe that they can take care of themselves.

Ironically, by trying to make life more fair for young women, who will face gender bias every day, parents often rob them of the skills they need to face those challenges successfully.

It works with boys, too.

I need to be very careful not to give Trent too much in terms of money or material things. I need to create incentives for him to begin generating income for himself. He needs to face the very real challenges of making money and making a living himself---better early---or he will be crippled, never having any evidence that he can manage on his own.

By nature, I am an enabler. If I do not learn to withhold cask gifts and material goods, i will cripple the ones I love.

The good news: some gifts consistently pay off without crippling kids who receive them, and some adults who get the opportunity to become self-sufficient late in life do make the shift successfully. From the book's case studies, these people tend to be:

1. People in the middle of really serious life crises, who have no choice (like me, when I left Ken), and

2. Academics, teachers and professors, and people with this kind of background. I think it's because these people really understand that there are many worldviews/paradigms put there, and they know that it is possible to shift between them. they also tend to have a great deal of confidence in their ability to learn and understand what they do not yet know, so even though they may be scared because they don't know how to make money, build wealth and prosper, they DO have confidence in their ability to find this information, absorb it and use it (again, I fell into this category).

What this book taught me: if I do not retrain my instincts, I will hurt the people I am trying to help---because I love them so much, and I want to make life easier for them.

I really encourage you to read this book for concrete examples of what appears to work and what appears to make things worse.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

My plans:

1. keep Trent from working in high school and college so he can study

2. Send him to a really expensive school if he wants to go

3. Pay for his schooling, all of it, and maybe graduate school

4. Offer plenty of financial support

5. Let home live at home as a young adult if he wants to

Wrong, wrong, WRONG!

Michael's plans, which initially horrified me:

1. Have him get a job early, as a teen
2. Make him pay for 1/3 of his own college costs
3. Encourage him to choose a reasonable state school
4. Make him go out on his own and pay for his own apartment and expenses shortly after becoming a young adult
5. Do not provide large doses of economic outpatient care

I just couldn't believe this plan was a good idea. It seemed so rough, and so hostile. Really, it just horrified me. Why push your kids out on their own so early?

Guess what? The successful folks the authors interviewed all fell into category 2. The anxious, in-debt-to-their-eyeballs folks with no clue how about to prosper and *lots* of fear of managing economically on their own fell into category 1.

Really expensive schooling, and lots of it, doesn't correlate with financial self confidence, ability to take care of one's self, or ability to prosper and avoid financial anxiety at all.

In some ways, it is a disadvantage.

Having a great deal of experience solving problems on your own and not getting economic support from your parents correlates very highly with all these positive traits...and with real happiness, accompanied by a low levels of financial anxiety.

Who knew?

I didn't.

I guess we go with Michael's plan after all.

[glenmarshall.livejournal.com]

Good for you!

Having experienced the impact of an emotionally unavailable father and a controlling mother, I wish *they* had helped me be strong, free, independent and self confident. But that wasn't to be. Through the process of therapy I managed to address most of the damage. It was not a pleasant task.

I wish you & Michael well, and especially Trent.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

This book convinces me that I need to be REALLY CAREFUL with cash gifts and material goods that can so easily become manipulative strategies and bids for control.

The authors encourage parents to stay out of their adult kids' lives and encourage them to make their own choices. They also point to lots of evidence that says that sending too much money in your kids' direction is likely to make this really difficult to do.

I don't want to make this mistake!

[jasminewind.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting more about what your & Michael's plans were, it is helpful to hear the diversity of viewpoints.

I have this book on hold at the library. Should get it at the beginning of August. Can't wait to read it.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

I don't mind saying that I was wrong, but I do feel a little stupid, and a little sad.

It's hard for me to accept that my instincts, which seem so strong and right and loving, can be so far off.

I'm still struggling with this. When I listened to this chapter, I just felt my stomach drop.

I kind of knew, intellectually, that over-enabling was a problem, but as the authors pulled out case study after case study after case study...ugh!

[jasminewind.livejournal.com]

But also remember that kids are individuals and have needs that may not be served by "sticking to the plan". If Trent has learning disabilities or is slower to mature to responsibility then it might serve him to have a more gentle introduction to responsibility. The key for you will be mastering your enabling instincts before then so that you can tell what the intentions of your actions are.

I have learned that a quality of many ADD brains is that they are "slow to mature" meaning in essence a 21 year old with ADD may have the executive function and ability to rely on abstraction and delayed gratification that an 18 year old has. Should this person be sent out into the world with the expectation that s/he will behave like a 21 year old or is it more appropriate to provide this person with additional support as their brain matures (which it will). These data spoke to me very personally because while I managed to function in the world, I had a feeling I was not getting it the same way my post-college peers were. Once I hit about 25, I started to "get it".

Also, I think the model of sending kids from their parents' homes to dorms is disastrous for most kids. If a kid is moving from their parent's home to a dorm or apartment without having learned or even been introduced to the countless adult life skills necessary to function, are we fostering independence or are we setting them up for failure.

Here is a model I like better - my neices are attending a charter school in CA that has been treating them more like community college students since 7th grade. They go to classes 2-3 days a week then do work at home on their own schedule. This has taught them a lot of study and planning skills that will serve them in independent life.

Then again, I'm gonna homeschool my kids next year because I see too many fundamental flaws in how our society "educates" children, from kindergarten to 12th grade.

Thanks!

[ingridsummers.livejournal.com]

I read the comments and actually feel relieved. Not that I wouldn't have liked to do for PG-13 exactly what you wanted to do for Trent.

The reality is that we probably won't be able to. She will have to figure out how to pay for college. We may be able to help a bit, but not substantially - spouse will be retired when she graduates from HS. Also, I fully believe in teens getting jobs and paying their own freight (ie car insurance and gas) and if she delays college but wants to live at home, we've always told her she'll have to pay rent.

When I was a teen my brother and I proposed that my parents give us what they would have spent on clothes, allowance and such each month and then we would be responsible for our own spending. We assumed (correctly) that my parents would give us the $$ and still pick up the tab for family outings (like movies) and we would make out in the end. It was a great way for us to learn to manage money.

I appreciate all your money posts and look forward to better financial health within our family (even if I have to drag spouse there kicking and screaming).

[eoma-p.livejournal.com]

There goes my world view! My "plans" look a lot like your with a tempering of financial reality -- my kids aren't going to Ivy League schools because we just can't afford it.

We're planning to stretch to cover tuition, room board and books at an in state school and encouraging a year or two living at home and attending community college, especially as we look forward to twelve years of paying for undergraduate education.

My parents paid for my entire undergraduate college career. Ed's parents paid for most of his undergraduate college career. We did both get some scholarships, but mine certainly didn't cover a third of the cost.

We also got "economic outpatient care" from both our parents while Ed was in grad school including the (small) down payment and closing costs on our first house.

I'm percolating on this, and just placed a hold on the book, but I need to consider how any change in our approach should affect Rose since she has only one year of high school left.

I don't want to be hurtful with this point, but you have a college degree and Michael doesn't. I'm wondering if his parents used his plan and he decided a degree isn't worth that much effort. I'm not sure I'd have a degree if I'd had to pay for 2/3 of it.

Finally, I agree with the point about tailoring any child rearing advice to your individual child and your family. I'm such an imperfect parent that I'm working out a lot of issues alongside my children. It's not ideal, but it's reality.

Sorry to be so long-winded. You stirred up a lot!

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

I don't think this advice means,"Kick your kids out at 18 and don't help them with tuition".

The one gift that really successful, well-adjusted folks got was...tuition. And Michael's parents let him live at home until he decided he wasn't going to go to college. then they told him that he needed to move out, support himself, and find out what to he wanted to do with his life. He was freaked out, but the one thing he always says now is,"That was the best thing they could ever have done for me."

And I do have an advanced degree from a good institution---it's been a huge piece of my identity.

But here's another thing I've been struggling with: I now believe that it has cost me as much as it has given me...maybe more.

I'm not saying that I regret all these years of training, but...if I could do it again, I might skip about 10 years of schooling.

I hate to say it, but an advanced degree is not everything I thought it would be.

And its cost: in family time, in money, in years of salary not collected, in years of no retirement money---was considerable.

I hate to say it, but...again, Michael may have been right there, too. He had a career option that he loved that required some short schooling at a modest institution, and he took it over his second option, which would have required a Ph.D.

He may have made the wiser choice.

But...I am here. I have a degree which *can* open many doors for me---but I'll have to use it in unconventional ways to get what I want.

That's OK. I will find a way to make my choices pay, and i will forge myself a wonderful, exciting path.

And that's really what this is about: choosing experiences for yourself and your children that encourage them to forge ahead in courageous, innovative ways, rather than conditioning yourself---and them---to just take the path of least resistance.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

What my parents did for me, was:

1. They paid for all of my undergraduate tuition, dorm, and fees. But I had a lot of merit-based scholarships: they took care of about half the total cost at what's now the most expensive school in the country (gods know why THAT is). They didn't actually intend to pay for ALL of it—I had a small loan in my name—but when my grandmother passed away in '03, they used some of their inheritance from her to pay off the amount of that loan for me.

2. They did not require me to work DURING school, but DID require me to work full time during the summers and on Christmas break. I temped.

3. My summer work earnings were enough for me to have money for books and general spending through the end of the first semester. For the second semester, my parents gave me money for books and general spending.

4. I paid for my own grad school with merit-based scholarships and loans, and worked part-time during that year to earn the money for my rent, utilities, food, and entertainment. I had a hard time finding a decent job for a few months after grad school (my field was a bitch for that), but after I did find a job and moved back to Boston (I'd been staying at their house for those months), I was completely financially independent, and have been that way for six years and going.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

This is so cool. :)

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

I think it worked well for us. It gave me the opportunity to go to a really, really good school for what I wanted to study, even though it was far from home. It also left me with a manageable level of debt, and taught me the value of hard work and the need to save.