While today’s youth face many challenges such as a higher cost of living, significantly higher costs for college education, and just an overall harder time getting ahead in life–it is somewhat understandable why it can take longer for young adults to get established and become financially independent. However, despite all of these setbacks, there are definitely ways to overcome this and to set up the younger generations for success. People complain that the younger generations are lazy and don’t want to work hard for anything. They favor instant gratification and doing what is least required of them in order to get by. While I don’t want to generalize everyone to be in this category, I do have to agree that this is the common trend with the youth nowadays. While many do not want to hear this, this issue stems mostly from PARENTING. If you parent your children in a way to allow them to achieve their goals and build them to be independent adults as opposed to dependent and needy adult children, then you are doing the right thing. Unfortunately, I see many parents who are doing the opposite which is ultimately creating a very lazy generation where they simply do not possess the life skills to survive out in the real world outside the comfort of their parents’ homes.

One of the biggest issues is that many parents are failing their children by overindulging their kids and handing everything to them without them working for anything. This is a huge mistake that often backfires in the long run. Parents complain that their adult children do not want to work or go out and get jobs. Well do you blame them? Why would they if they can get everything provided to them for free at home? It is essential that you teach your kids the value of building a strong worth ethic at an early age and understand the importance of developing a career that they love in order to be happy in life while also being able to create financial stability. If you buy your kids everything, then they get used to this way of life where they do not have to try or make any effort because everything is free at their disposal. So whenever they need something, as opposed to going out in the world to earn it, they are just going to expect that their parents will continue to provide everything for them. If this was a pattern that you fell into as a parent, then it is important to step up, establish boundaries, and BREAK THE CYCLE. Otherwise your kids are going to be adult children who mooch off of you forever which will not only eat a way at your retirement savings but also hinder your children from growing up and making something out of themselves.

It is incredibly sad to me to see so many young adults still depending on their family’s resources when they are fully capable of working and paying their own bills. That is why it is up to parents to make their children learn the value of money by making them learn how to earn it themselves and get them to pay for their own expenses when they are old enough to work. This prevents them from expecting free handouts all the time and pushes them to think outside the box and develop passions that will build into wealth over time. That is why it is necessary that parents TEACH the value behind hard work and set high expectations for their children so that they can thrive as adults.