<p>Well, Mini, it wasn’t a matter of “trust”, it was a matter of “denial”. My son was “in denial” over the seriousness of his academic difficulties, and his college apparently helped foster that state of denial by renewing his merit scholarship and failing to place him on academic probation. Since you deal with substance abuse in your work, surely you must be familiar with that concept. </p>
<p>I don’t think for a minute that my son intended to deceive me or take money from me. I think he kept telling himself that his problem was fixable. </p>
<p>The problem is that at age 18 and 19, my son was still immature. From a neurological perspective, the prefrontal region of the brain doesn’t mature fully until early to mid 20’s, which tends to leave older teens without the capacity to exercise fully adult-level judgment, planning, and appreciation of consequences in their lives, even if the law says they are adults. (Mini, since they are “adults” at age 18, do you think the drinking age should be lowered? If not, why should they be granted full adult privileges and rights in all respects except drinking? )</p>
<p>It has nothing to do with “trust”. I don’t think my son lied to me; I think he lied to himself, all the while digging a deeper academic hole. (Part of the problem was that his LAC had a practice of giving students evaluations but not grades, but recording grades on a transcript --my son shared at least one seemingly favorable “evaluation” his first year that was written by a teacher who assigned a D for the course. So it is quite possible that my son hadn’t checked some of his grades, either).</p>
<p>But that’s why parental access to third-party information makes sense. Kids who are in trouble are the ones most likely to be in a state of denial – they don’t always know that they need to be asking for help. Meanwhile, there’s a clock running and deadlines passing – things that really are fixable at point A but not so easily repaired 6 months or a year down the line. </p>
<p>I love my son; he’s not perfect. He also has a tendency to forget to pay bills-- so when mail comes to my house addressed to him, I open it, and if he owes money somewhere, I email him right away so that he can take care of it. These aren’t bills he can’t pay – he’s very frugal and probably now has more ready cash in the bank than any other family member. I mean things like a bill for $12 on some credit card that turns into a bill for $42 because of the $30 late fee. I could respect his privacy more and simply forward him all the mail unopened… but then there would be even more late fees.</p>