Parents: did you let your teens have complete access to their money or were you a gatekeeper?

My eldest worked for a friend of ours in the construction industry for 6 months and made a good amount of money. He took some of that cash as spending money and put the rest of the money in a GIC with our help.

We drove across Canada and he spent all his money on purchasing gifts for his many friends. He had planned on using this spending money for the trip and Christmas. The problem now is that he wants to buy Christmas gifts for his friends and his family and he only has $60 left. He wants to access the money he saved.

Part of me wants to give him complete access to this money and let him learn the hard lessons around spending every penny you have. It would be better for him to learn those lessons now, at 15, then later in life. Although spending all that money wouldn’t effect him because his father and I provide for all his needs at this point.

The other part of me wants to tell him no and make him keep the investments as they are. I worry that we’ll just prolong that valuable lesson of saving if we go this route.

We have had many discussions with him about the value of saving (which is why he put that money into a GIC) as well as being reasonable in the amount you spend on gifts and on whom you decide to give gifts to. We have tried to get him to understand that buying relatively expensive gifts for all his friends is going overboard. Of course, he thinks we are wrong and unduly stingy.

How did you handle money issues with your kids?