Oldest is in second year of uni. He doesn't qualify for much of a loan so first year he didn't take it and we paid fees and for fully catered dorm. He used summer earnings for anything else, including train home. This year we have re-thought. We have still paid fees, but he has taken the loan and is using summer earnings and has got a term-time job too. We still pay the phone bill at the moment. We have never considered asking for contributions when he is home. He is the messiest, and does nothing in the house when home, apart from occasionally walking the dog.

Middle child is 16, and has a job. He wasted a chunk of cash when he first had a bank card so is much more careful now. I don't ask him for any of this money, and he still gets a small allowance. He wouldn't care enough to buy clothes so I still buy them.

Youngest is 14, and gets the same allowance as her brother.

Neither of the two who still live at home do much apart from occasionally tidy their own rooms. They do a lot of extra-curricular stuff and I cba to nag them about housework.

Do they use the phone as a phone or as a glorified typewriter and camera for social media. If the latter, make them pay the data component as it is highly unlikely that the data component is used to keep in touch with home/work etc.

We are a family of 4 with a 16 year old and a 20 year old and we share 4.5 gb and have never gone over 4 gb. I've set each of the children to 1.5 gb per month and with wifi readily available, it isn't hard to stay under that cap.

The 16 year old pays for his own clothes, meals out with friends, concert tickets, etc through his part time job. The 20 year old is in the same boat and she pays a high proportion of her university tuition and some of her rent.

She saved up for and finished a year at university in the south of France and managed to budget things with lots of success.

Too many parents are scared to upset/alienate their children by having them contribute/pay their way and these same parents want to be 'best friends' with their kids.

My boy, 22, does not pay any bills regarding my house, that's our house and not his responsibility

Everything else he pays for himself

I think I wouldn't get so resentful if I didn't feel I was constantly clearing after them. I'm not ultra ultra tidy but like the usual day to day stuff kept under control i.e. cat, washing up, reasonably tidy room etc. I don't think it's too much to ask.

Older daughter has all her university fees paid. She buys her own designer technical outdoor gear. I pay her phone etc. but she regards it as intrusive if I ask her to keep her room etc tidy and contribute towards keeping the rest of the house tidy.

Younger one is more helpful and kinder.

I completely sympathise. I expected my oldest to undergo some sort of miraculous transformation once he had lived away from home, and had to share with others. Four months at home over the summer proved that this hadn't happened. I am trying to accept that it is no longer up to me to 'improve ' him. It is not my responsibility anymore to find the right form of words to cure his selfishness. He will get better or he won't. This is easier to do when he is not living here though. for you

Thank you ... I know many parents go through this but to be honest it's more difficult than when they're younger because they hate being told what to do!

Did you pay anything towards the tuition, books, equipment or rent if they were away or anything like that, even though they were paying too?

As the third son to start work and pay 'housekeeping' I was already conditioned to paying something.
Back then we had 'cost of living' adjustments and my parents suggested that should be added to what I was paying. It seemed entirely reasonable at the time...not that I saw it that way of course.

I moved out to a flat share (moved back after flatmate got married and wanted his missus to move in) but for the 18 months I was there, paying what began as a third rent but became half when another guy left, electricity, coins for the slot TV showed me what things cost.

The landlord used to collect rent every third Friday and whenever there were two third-Fridays in the month, we had to be "out" when he called and pay 4 weeks the following Friday.

When I moved back, I doubled what I had been paying 18 months earlier.

..

I've been lucky - or maybe it was good parenting, mainly on my wife's part what with having her kids for 11 and 13 before I came along.

While there might have been the odd whinge they generally accepted they had their own responsibilities.

Oddly my wife didn't think housekeeping when stepdaughter started working was fair even though I know she contributed similarly to her parents.

We compromised and had her make a contribution but we reduced it or wiped it out if she hadn't done many hours.

But I always made her aware how lucky that was for her and how she wouldn't have that luxury if she were renting. She also saw the problems I had when, for whatever reason, money was not forthcoming from my tenants in the rental property.

I've not asked for an increase in the 8 years since - although there are no free weeks now - mostly because the actual housing costs have been fairly stable in that time but also because she buys plenty of other things.

Stepson pays nothing but since his only income is the quarterly GST refund, he can't. Apart from what I pay him to cut the grass. The plan was if he was paid for it, then it wouldn't be such a chore to get him to do it. Misplaced optimism I'm afraid.

BBM: WELL, shut that down FAST. Like yesterday. IME, it was quite astonishing how fast one of my offspring found themselves able to pay their own phone bill when I did this.

Otherwise, if your children weren't expected to pick up/tidy up after themselves growing up/do household chores, you'll probably have an uphill battle.

This is not as easy as it sounds. Especially when the phone companies push hard towards shared data plans and one is happy to take more than their share of the data. We have the added issue of only have 'mobile' data as wifi (rocket hub with data limit). One time we had an $800+ for a single month. Much yelling was done, but it didn't make any difference, and the worst offender is no longer allowed access.

Kids will take whatever you're prepared to give them.

When my daughter was young, she wanted this new top and that new trainer, so we gave her an allowance and told her to buy her clothes out of that. Strange how the gleam of accumulating gold quenched the thirst for new things.

Similarly when she married, it was flowers here, flowers there and 'oh we'll need a hundred of those...'. So we gave her a fixed sum and said what she didn't spend was hers. Suddenly the need for flowers evaporated, as did the need for all of 'those'.

I suspect that if, instead of paying the phone bill, you simply gave the kids the basic phone cost in cash and told them to pay it for themselves, the data overruns would disappear... at least after the first time it happened.

I'm beginning to think that the 3 or 4 major cell phone providers we have here in Canada are rubbing their hands at us parents paying for their kids over charges. I have finally put a block on my Daughter's cell plan so that she can only go over in $10 increments to a maximum of $50 and then it stops. This is for her protection, not mine.

I wish we had those cheap UK month to month pay as you go sim only plans. Friends of ours buy these PAYG cards for their kids, about 20 pounds a month for a crazy amount of data. But once you reach the limit, no more data until next month. Kids soon learn how to conserve data that way.

Reminds me of when people actually used their phones for calling "I can't call you, I don't have any minutes left"

On the phone front, we have Koodo pay as you go - $15 a month for unlimited texting. Data is about $30 ish for 1GB.

The kids pay the monthly fee themselves (tied to their debit card) and I reimburse them the monthly fee. If they want to buy data they can (I won't). We pay for unlimited wifi at home, they have wifi at school, wifi at the Mall etc. If they are desperate, they can turn on their data but they really don't **need** it, therefore I won't pay for it.

One kid now away at uni - the other home. Both seem currentlly responsible - may change of course. Both know the value of money but equally are messy at home!

I wasn’t very good at this regulation business. My children came and went between their Mother’s house and mine at will, when they turned up unscheduled we’d go to the pub for dinner. They had phones, I paid the bills without looking. I recall once suggesting some sort of financial constraint and that it caused a teenaged daughter to tear up her platinum Amex and throw the pieces at me. “Nose, face” I thought. They all had rooms at my house and used them for several years. I didn`t look in them until they each moved away. They were clean enough then.

All of my children achieved what we, their parents, hoped of them; all finished high school without being pregnant. I then paid for their tuition, one degree each. It was money well spent because they liked education and bought themselves more degrees. They have each stepped way beyond me in terms of professional achievements. Arguably, one being a lifeguard managing an Olympic pool and one being a sailing instructor, two of them had surpassed my achievements while still in high school.

I don`t say that one should be a dissolute parent, that access to a house of booze and weed is essential to a child`s growth. What I do say is that, as a parent one should try to convey certain core values ``don`t go out without a condom``. ``don`t smoke anything that didn`t grow in the ground``, ``if you don`t physically do it with a penis you can do it too`` and that the rest doesn`t matter. In ten years, if your child is successful, you`ll be happy, if your child is not, you won`t and having saved $10 or his or her phone bill won`t matter either way.

In 10 years, if my child is happy, then I will consider my role successful......