Does Your ADHD College Student Know How To Manage Money??

The new sheets and towels are washed and folded. The new laptop has been purchased, and is waiting at the college computer store for pick up. All of the new outfits, and all of the old cherished tee shirts, have been packed in the duffel. All that’s left is the drive to the college, the teary goodbyes, the fervently wished hopes of parents, and kids.

But does your ADHD kiddo know how money works? How to budget? That credit cards aren’t free money for when they run out of the real thing?

This is important for any college student to learn, but even more so for ADHD students.

ADHDers have more planning and organizational challenges that can cause monitoring of accounts to be ignored, bills to be paid late, or not at all. Greater impulsivity, combined with the shopping dopamine hit, can lead them to push the button on purchases without a second thought. Bigger difficulties with routines can mean being late for that on-campus job, or not showing up, period.

You might think “Why worry about this? I can just add more money to their account, or pay the bill for their food card for them. They’ll have enough on their plate just getting to class and getting their work done.” 

And while this comes from a beautiful place of wanting to help, college is the time where all kids - including your ADHDer - learn how to strike out on their own. That doesn’t mean they don’t need rescuing from time to time - I know I certainly did! - but the more we can do to prepare them for independence, the better.

So how do we pack our ADHD student’s financial duffel?

1 - Explain how money works to your child, in a way that meets them where they are. There is nothing wrong with using the simplest terms, diagrams, pictures - whatever works. The understanding that your child needs is this: Money is not an unlimited resource. When you start with $100, and spend $90, you have $10 left. I like to draw a simple bar to represent money, erasing what gets spent. 

2 - Consider funding your student on a monthly basis, instead of all at once. It’s much easier to control one’s spending when there is less in the account, especially for ADHDers, whose impulsivity can cause rapid fire purchases.

3 - Please - PLEASE! - explain how credit cards work. When students first start out at school they may be too young to have a credit card (other than one of yours for emergencies), but at some point, they will be approached by a credit card company with the opportunity to open a card with a small credit limit. To anyone who doesn’t understand how credit cards work, this can be the start of a bonfire. To an ADHD kiddo who can get a dopamine rush from any purchase, and an even bigger jolt from a purchase that doesn’t lower their checking account balance, this is like pouring gasoline on that bonfire! The last thing you want is for your child to sabotage their credit score before they even know they have one.

4 - Emphasize to your student that tracking their account needs to happen consistently, preferably daily! Your student will probably have Venmo, Zelle, PayPal, Uber, Lyft, Door Dash, etc. all connected to their account. Without looking at their account on a consistent basis, it will be very difficult to keep track of how much money they actually have. Following a routine like this is challenging for our ADHD students; discussing how this can happen (stacking it with eating lunch, rewarding themselves with a mirror high five) can be a helpful conversation.

5 - Offer to act as your student’s accountability buddy, as opposed to just being their wallet. Being a co-owner of the account can enable you to look things over, and text your child with a loving “have you checked your balance today? Things are looking good (or not)!” This will allow them to think through where they are at with their money. It also allows for discussions that start with “What do you think is causing the issue with having enough money? What do you think might help?” rather than “Fine, I’ll give you more money, but this is the last time!” 

You can anticipate that your student will mess this up on occasion, or even more than that. That is part of learning. Discussing what happened, and what can prevent it from happening again, is what we call in the education biz a “teachable moment.” This can be especially important for ADHD kids, who may need some help not just determining what needs to be done, but how their executive functions can be supported to actually do it.

And here’s my last tip - sunglasses. It’ll hide the tears. You can sob all you want in the car after dropoff!