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What are some concerns for children over 18?

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Host: What are some concerns for children over 18?

William Conway: Well, one will have concerns if children over the age of 18 for two reasons. The first is of course, that we still have to select the age at which children would ordinarily be capable of managing their own money affairs. One could select the age of 25 or 30, having an adult, an uncle or a friend, a bank or financial institution be the person who would be managing the money prior that time would be a selection that would be up to the parents. But one of the areas that most people overlook is when we have young adults, when we have children going off to college, in that set of circumstances; we once again are out of control. There was a time when colleges would send back grades, there was a time when parents had a reasonable expectation that should their child be involved in an accident or some concern over their health and that child could not him or herself direct their own healthcare, that the parent would make those decisions, but once again, on the absence of a plan and in this case the plan must be written or read to by the child to allow the parents to make the healthcare decisions. So, anybody who is sending a young child off to school, an adult, near adult child off to school needs to have that child sign an Advanced Healthcare Directive or healthcare power of attorney in order to be able to allow the parent to make medical decisions for the child, should the child be injured or otherwise unable to direct his or her own healthcare decisions.