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December 11, 2025 13 mins

“Hey Mike, I want to help my kids now while I’m alive. Do you have any do’s and don’ts when it comes to financially helping your kids?” 

Discover why helping your kids who are making bad financial decisions may hurt them more overall.

Text your questions to 913-363-1234. 

Request Your Wealth Analysis by going to www.retireontime.com 

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Episode Transcript

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Mike (00:05):
Welcome to how to retire on time, a show that answers
your retirement questions. Saygoodbye to that oversimplified
advice you've heard hundreds oftimes. This show's all about the
nitty gritty. Now that said,remember, it's just a show, not
financial advice. It'seducational.
So do your research. As always,text your questions to (913)
363-1234. Again, (913) 363-1234.Let's dive in. David, what do we

(00:29):
got?

David (00:30):
Hey, Mike. I want to help my kids now while I'm alive. Do
you have any dos and don'ts whenit comes to financially helping
your kids? We're talking aboutadult kids here or kids that
still live at home or both?

Mike (00:43):
What are they called now? Twenty to thirty year olds are
emerging adults. They're notadults. They're emerging. And
you look back, it's like, oh,that kid was 18 years old.
This is back in like thethirties or forties.

David (00:54):
Yeah.

Mike (00:55):
And they like owned their business, had five kids. I'm
being facetious here, but yeah.Things have shifted. The
coddling of the American kid hasdestroyed a lot of what we are.
The unrealistic expectations ofhow life is supposed to be has
destroyed an entire generation.

(01:17):
And to put it one step further,the idea that everyone is
entitled to success and comfort,nope. Yeah. You gotta earn it,
and things will continue to getmore competitive. They will
continue to get more difficult.If we kept all of our jobs here,
never did in this globaleconomy, it would have been a

(01:38):
lot easier, but we didn't.
We took as many jobs as wecould, and we outsourced them
for cheaper labor, which broughtthe cost of goods down, which
has artificially manipulatedinflation or the cost of living
in our country, and now it'sgetting more and more difficult.
So my opinion, backed by a lotof research, which I'm happy to

(01:59):
share maybe at another time, islook at the behavior. Okay? If
the kid went to college becausethey just wanted a good job, but
they studied some arbitrarything and never could explain
how they were going to get outof it, that's either on you or
on them or on both of you. Butwhat's the behavior of the kid?

(02:22):
Do they have a sense ofentitlement that they're
supposed to just get a job andthat job's gonna pay them
$2,300,000 a year doing, I don'tknow, some arbitrary
philanthropic work in the middleof Africa. Well, that doesn't
make economic sense. So thereality of all of this is pain,

(02:42):
the hardship that your child isexperiencing could be what they
need to adjust their behavior sothat they move into a healthier
position that allows them tolive a healthier, more
sustainable life. Here's what Imean. When parents pay off their
kid's credit card debt, whatyou're doing is you're taking

(03:05):
away the pain that they need tolearn how to manage their money.
The same is said about weight.And I know people, oh, you know,
we don't fat shame people. I'mnot talking about fat shaming
anyone. Oh, well, differentgenetics. Yes.
I get there's different guesswhat? Life's not fair. We all
come from different backgrounds.We all have a different amount

(03:26):
of IQ. We all have differentskill sets.
We all have different behaviors,different personalities. You
can't change that. What you canchange is the simple fact that
if you have a calorie deficit,that you're going to be able to
lose weight. Mhmm. You wanna doit in a healthy way, but is that
comfortable?
No. It's not comfortable. If youhave credit card debt, you don't

(03:47):
just maintain your spending andit magically disappear. You have
to have a spending decrease topay it off. That is the best
medicine you could have.
And if it takes them two, three,four years, good. I'm not being
harsh. I'm talking aboutbehavior. This is a simple
framework. Write it down, or ifyou're in the car, just listen

(04:09):
to the show later on.
Find us on YouTube or a podcastor wherever or retire on
time.com. But your history isgoing to shape your habits. Your
habits are your behavior.Behaviors are your the patterns
of your actions that will thenshape your habitat or the
reality that you you exist in.So if you have a history of
parents paying off credit carddebt or parents providing for

(04:31):
you, your history is going toshape habits of unrealistic
spending behavior, which willnot create a sustainable habitat
that they'll be able to enjoyfor the rest of their life.
So one of the worst things Ithink parents can do is pay off
credit card debt for their kids.

David (04:46):
Mhmm.

Mike (04:46):
Now maybe you help them with some student debt. Yeah. I
gonna ask that. You encouragedthem to get in there, and maybe
you didn't help them along theway, but, you know, I get that.
A lot of people were lied tothinking that college is your
one solution.
All you go to college, you getyour degree, and then there's
your jobs are lining up for you.It's not that way anymore. Mhmm.
Yes. Engineering jobs, STEMjobs.

(05:07):
Yes. Doctors need to go toschool. Please, doctors, go to
school. Yeah. I like the factthat you're highly educated.
Yeah. But maybe question certainways of going into tech. Maybe a
technical school is a better wayto get into tech, and then you
go and get your bachelor's lateron after you're already earning
some money into tech. If you caneven get into tech because it's

(05:29):
more and more difficult becauseAI is replacing a lot of the
entry level jobs. People goingto the finance, this might sound
scary because we're a financialpractice.
Uh-huh. But I think people whowanna get into finance, for
example, should get a job infinance first, get their
licensings first, learn fromexperienced advisers, and then
go back to school so that it's abetter, more productive

(05:51):
experience.

David (05:53):
Uh-huh.

Mike (05:53):
You're not just checking off the box. You're learning,
and then you're learning evenfurther, and you're applying it,
and it's a better refiningexperience. Get your associates.
Yes. Get that right now.
If your high school allows youto get your associates at the
high end of high school, do it.Then go make some dumb mistakes
in life. Go travel the world,whatever. Get that need out,
whatever that is, but focus onthe skill set. Marketers, go get

(06:17):
a marketing job.
Get an internship. Just get theexperience. Learn the skill set,
and then later on maybe considergoing to college if that makes
sense.

David (06:27):
Right.

Mike (06:28):
There's a lot of people entering the workforce. They
can't even get a job. Maybequestion parts of the old
system, how it's shifting now,but paying off debt, creating a
codependent relationship withyour kids hurts you, and it
hurts them. They need to learnfirst to become independent, and
then they can grow from there.You cannot solve their problems

(06:52):
because their problems are basedon their behavior.
Their behavior is the number oneindicator, in my opinion, of
their habitat, their lifestyle,their results, what they're
gonna look like moving forward.You can't learn for them. You
can't force lessons on them, butcoddling or solving their
problems or taking away the paintakes away what they need to be

(07:14):
able to learn. If humans wererational, we would not have any
of these issues.

David (07:18):
Mhmm.

Mike (07:19):
But we're not. Yeah. I hear people come in the office
and say, well, we're help ourkids out. Great. Help them get
into a house.
If they're working hard, they'respending less than they make,
and they're just trying theirbest. Notice the behavior is
congruent with healthy financialdecisions, then, yeah, help them
get into a house. Help themspeed up their college payoff.

(07:40):
Help them maybe have a littleextra for the grandkids'
education, but that's fine. Butif you're helping your kids
financially and they're getting$80 appetizers at the local
steakhouse to celebrate somearbitrary feel good moment, do
not help them.

David (08:00):
And it might be hard to not help them. Right? They're
your kids, and you wanna helpthem.

Mike (08:04):
Yeah. But just like if you want to become strong, you have
to experience pain before youget the result of the strength
of the muscles. If you wannahave grit, which people need
grit, look at Angela Duckworth'sresearch on grit and how you
need grit in order to handlelife. You have to go through

(08:25):
difficult situations to learnhow to have grit.

David (08:28):
It seems like a lot of this is lacking, and I don't
know if it's just our AmericanWestern society or what, but
we're not as in the middle hereon this. We're over, I don't
know, compensating overcoddling.

Mike (08:41):
Yeah. You wanna reward good behavior, not take away
from pain. Yeah. So my son, he'sdoing little league basketball
right now. He's five.
And the whatever the not agency.What what do you call sports
association, whatever, for thekids? Yeah.

David (08:57):
Like a little league.

Mike (08:58):
Yeah. Every week, one kid gets a trophy regardless of what
they did or the outcome. Just arandom kid is getting a trophy,
and at the end, everyone gets atrophy. Yeah. That is so dumb.
Here's why it's dumb. You'regonna get a trophy randomly
whether you deserved it or not.And the times you do deserve it,
you don't get a trophy or you'renot celebrated at all. There's
no individual pursuit andcollective team pursuit. It's

(09:21):
just this arbitrary, hey.
Let's just randomly celebrateand focus on one person and
celebrate them because theyexist. Yeah. That's so dumb. And
we know it doesn't work becausethe trophy mentality that we
tried in the nineties and twothousands has destroyed, and we
have the research to prove that.So what do they do?
They're now celebrating one kidinstead of every kid. It's just

(09:43):
repackaging the same problem.And the same thing happens. Oh,
let's let's celebrate people.You're special.
You probably are special, butdid you deserve the reward that
you got? So my son's crying atthe end of this, and I said,
well, what did you do to deservea trophy? Yeah. You didn't
score. You didn't steal.

(10:03):
In fact, you were actually atthe end of the court dancing.
You weren't even looking at thebasketball. So how in the world
do you deserve a trophy? Hesays, well, they got a trophy,
and they didn't do anything. Isaid, yeah.
The whole function's wrong, butyou wanted an attaboy next week?
So here's what we did. This wasreally funny. I said, alright,
Judah. If you can get two stealsand one rebound, I'll give you

(10:27):
an ice cream sandwich.
Yeah. And you know what he caredmore about? He cares more about
ice cream sandwiches thantrophies anyway. He really wants
an ice cream sandwich. Yeah.
You know what he did that wholegame? He was focused. He was at
the end under the basket on theright side because that's
usually where they go in thisleague because kids are
predictable in how they shootthe ball. They're always, you
know, having to go to the right.And he's down there.
He puts his hands up, and it wasso cool. The moment where his

(10:52):
hands were up, he was waitingfor the rebound. He's five, and
the ball bounces and he catchesit. He goes, daddy, daddy, I got
the rebound. And and there's nobackcourt pressure, so the kids
all run down.
It was fine. And he dribbles it.I mean, the moment he earned it
though. Yeah. Because the lastfive times it bounced towards
him, he ducked.

(11:12):
He was scared of the ball, butnow he's not as scared of the
ball.

David (11:15):
Yeah. Yeah.

Mike (11:15):
Yeah. So when you do a line to reward good behavior
and, he got hit in the face acouple of times. That hurt. So
now he's more aware of his arms.I mean, this is classic.
How do you reward good behaviorand set kids up for success?
Don't take away their pain.Right. You can help them with
the financial situation. You canhelp them get into a house or

(11:39):
things like that as long astheir behavior shows good
financial decisions.

David (11:45):
Can you finance their college? Yeah. You could. What
if they what if you're financingtheir tuition and they get bad
grades and they do you No. Is itokay to stop?
Yes. Yes. He's alright.

Mike (11:55):
There's a guy I knew who had basically a written
agreement. It wasn't an officialtrust, but it was a written
agreement that said and this guyhad a lot of money. So he was an
executive at Boeing. And hisdaughter graduates, falls in
love with some beach bum, says,hey, daddy, I want my funds. He
says, look at the agreement.
And the agreement says it wasthere to pay for college or
certain things, and even jokedif you wanna run off with some

(12:17):
guy, you can't touch the funds.He says, daddy, that's not fair.
He says, okay. Well, it's mymoney, so that's fine.
Eventually, the beach bum andher got into a fight.
They broke up. She went toschool, married another guy,
really nice man, and I wasdating their youngest daughter,
so I came to really love thefamily. Wonderful people. And

(12:38):
her life was much better becausehe held a boundary with civility
Yeah. And forced her to havebetter behavior.
It is so important for parentsto do things like this. That's
all the time we've got for theshow today. If you enjoyed the
show, consider subscribing to itwherever you get your podcast.
Just search for how to retire ontime. Discover if your portfolio

(12:59):
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