Question for parents about promoting independence (Page 2)

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Well I know my son (and his mom) were reluctant to tell me he wanted to be a chef. At the time I was pretty high up in research management at a Pharma, and I guess they felt I would find it a 'lesser profession' and be against it.

I thought it was great that he found something he liked so early. The kid got into a magnet high school for culinary arts, now he's in college. It is a rough life but it's his passion, and he's a great kid. I know my parents were upset when I opted for a Ph.D. rather than an MD (I got into both programs), but I really love what I'm doing too and can't imagine doing anything else.

That being said, I cannot fathom parents who let their kids get into major debt to obtain a degree in a profession where it's nearly impossible to pay that off. Nearly always it's about status - going to an elite school just for the name.

I don't think it matters the profession. Starting off your life with crushing debt is, well, crushing. We (mrs gearboy and I) finished our education with debt north of $300k by the time we started to work as physicians. At those kind of levels of debt, you are either have to win a giant lottery or plan to remain yoked to a well paying job for essentially the rest of your working life. Assuming, of course, that you want things like a house, kids, a car or two. As a result of our experiences, we have worked very hard to cover our kids' educations as well, so that they can work for themselves, instead of to pay for their college or grad school well into their 50's.

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Understood and I agree to a large extent. But my point was that when we were looking at schools we saw two that he really liked. One was where I am affiliated and it was still $52k/year, the other was $28k/year. The latter is an even a better deal as they go through most of the summer and he can graduate in 3 years, so one less year of tuition. And honestly, for Culinary Arts it's who you apprentice with much more than the school. He's going to make dinky until he can become at least a sous chef.

In a sense it's no different than my postdoc or your resident's salary, but it's a LOT harder to break 100k as a chef. The major difference is grad school was not only free, I got paid a whopping $5400/year as a stipend when I started

Your child is enrolled as a freshman at a college or university. The child calls and complains that they are having trouble with a roommate, can't get the classes they want or are struggling with a bureaucracy of a university (account holds, delayed financial aid payments, etcetera). 

Do you attempt handle the situation for your child? Encourage your child to handle it on their own? Do you coach your child through the situation?

At what age or maturity level did you (or do you intend to [for parents of younger children]) start having your children handle more "adult problems"? What steps did you take to promote independence when dealing with challenging situations?