Teaching Teens to Expect the Unexpected (and helping them become resourceful and self-reliant along the way)

At 18 years of age, I had already owned my first car for two years. Growing up in Texas, most individuals needed a car, and families often bought one for their teens to avoid scheduling snafus. I was in my first year of college and had always been adept at managing my money so as to never find myself in financial difficulty. Yes, I was a bit of a tightwad! But it served me well in terms of having money when I needed it.
One morning I went out to start the car, turned the key and … nothing. Not even a click. Oh no, I thought to myself. I’m going to have to get someone to jump start it. (I think most of you know what this means, but if you don’t it involves another car that’s running, and cables to link between the two batteries so that the non-functioning car gets a little “juice” from the one that’s running.) Anyway, I did what many teens do — I called my dad. Who was angry — furious, actually. He assumed I had left the door ajar or some such thing which would drain the battery overnight. He gave me the number of a garage and a mechanic was dispatched.
The mechanic arrived, jumper cables in hand, opened the hood of my car, took one look and said, “Honey, you don’t need me. You need a battery.” Yes, that’s right, someone had STOLEN the battery out of my car during the night. I held back my tears until after he left, but then they flowed freely. This was a huge expense for me. One that I had not counted on. AND my dad was angry AND I couldn’t even get to my part-time job that day.
Forty-plus years later, I don’t remember how I resolved the money crisis that day. What I DO remember however, is the lesson I learned: “Expect the unexpected.” From that day on, I always had money saved for any unforeseen expenses that might occur.
Most teenagers haven’t yet learned to “expect the unexpected.” Yes, you may have talked to them about it — telling your stories, as I did when my children were teenagers. But the truth is, until they experience it themselves, the stories and lessons we try to teach in this regard are, to teenagers, more fantasy than reality. Teens live in an almost perpetually invincible state of mind, believing that the things about which they hear won’t happen to them.
That’s not to say we should stop telling our stories as well as the morals that accompany them. In fact, the more we have continuing dialogues with our teens about “the unexpected” — whether it’s in relation to money, or sex, or drugs — the more seeds we plant. As their brains develop, and as they make choices, those small seeds begin to come to life. Something in the back of their mind says, “Huh, I’ve heard that before,” or “Hmm, maybe I should wait on that: not sure why, but ‘something’ tells me I should think about it a while longer.” Sometimes even a small hesitation in the moment of making a decision saves them from taking a hazardous risk.
In addition to telling our stories, when our teenagers do encounter the unexpected it’s important to resist rescuing them. My dad could have swooped in to save the day, leaving his job and bringing cables over to jump the car himself. He could have been the one to open the hood, discover the missing battery, run to the auto parts store, pay for the missing part, and hire someone to install it. But he didn’t. This, frankly, was not something I appreciated in the moment but understand and value now.
If my dad had bailed me out, I would have learned a very different lesson from the one I did. I would have come away believing that someone would be there to save me if I had a financial crisis. And that’s simply not the truth about life. Our job is not to save our kids, but to stimulate self-reliance and resourcefulness. As your teenager encounters the unexpected in life, it’s ok to lend an empathetic ear. It’s also ok to arrange with your teen to loan them money — as long as it’s a loan with a plan to pay you back that you, and they, will stick to. But never lose sight of your goal: to create a financially savvy, capable, responsible and independent person. And that goal means allowing your teen to experience the consequences of their mistakes without rescuing them.
