Help! Son must not have access to child trust fund

[Comingup]

My son will be 18 soon and is addicted to weed, he is aggressive and abusive. Can anyone tell me what actually happens when18th birthday comes up? Do they write to the child? Can I stop it from maturing or whatever it does. I am really panicking as I have had a massive altercation with him where he admits spending a fortune every week on weed. I plan to ring the company but after tonight don't think I will sleep at the thought of him having any more money to harm himself with.

U could hide the mail like someone else said but if he does find out were does that leave you! He could very well turn nasty. I dont want you to be in any more danger. Have you thought about turning him out, I know he's your son but drugs can not be cured with love. He needs help and if he wont accept it then you need to take care of yourself. Sorry and I really mean that

I would get your DN to look into this again if any deposits were made including the amount from the govt the money has to he somewhere.
My DD got back £2500 in March.

@roarfeckingroarr

This concerns me. I put £1000 a month into one year old DS' similar account. My family intend to add a few thousand each year across birthdays and Christmas. It'll be nearly £300k when he's 18. That's a lot to go off the rails with.

What a boast! However for that amount of money I'm surprised that you haven't already got proper financial advice. And got it locked into a proper trust fund, which gets handed over at appropriate points in time, or that you control.

Unfortunately not a lot you can do about it. I have been through this with all 3 of mine. Personally I believe 18 is far to young to receive family chunks of money. I would rather them of all had the monies at 30. If it helps all 3 of mine spent the money very quickly and stupidly. Weed was an issue along with other drugs. This went on and was a battle from around the ages of 16 - 19 and they all just stopped, the reality of life kicks in and they do sort themselves out. Years and years of worry and battles seem a distant past now and I am exceptionally proud of the adults they have become. Stay strong, it does get better.

I think the rose tinted glasses intention was for young people to use it for their university education.

@Lockdownbear is that a boast? Not really. It's a thousand a month, not a million.

Well quite @Lockdownbear !
I call bullshit anyway @roarfeckingroarr given that you’d be exceeding the annual allowance for a JISA anyway 🤷🏻‍♀️
Quite why you thought it was a helpful contribution I don’t know.

I really dont understand how 18 is a good age. How many of us were sensible at 18. Should be 25 in my opinion. You are a completely different person in those 7years

@LeekChic Not at all. As already discussed, there wasnt an option for those given money by the government. There was when I opened my kids acounts, but the account summaries didnt make this issue clear, that you lose all control once you have put the money in....

@Cocomarine Yes..... it said you couldn't withdraw money - and there were options where you could, but it certainly didnt make it clear that that meant the money was no longer yours and you couldnt close it out!! (even though you were the one paying in) This was based on summaries, it read like withdrawals affect the interest/tax free nature of accounts. I didnt pick the JISA, so I would only hope that if we had wanted to chose that option, it would have be made very clear!!

Childrens Bond matured - 21 yr old spent it all on MDMA supplied by County Lines, had a psychotic episode and lost his flat. Life. He was a grown up, living independently and had capacity. Good luck. We grow them up to flourish, some don't.

I think it needs to be made clearer to parents when opening savings accounts / JiSAs that once it’s in the account they have no control over it. When opening one for DS I asked, and they told me that for the JISA I would have no access: but I would for the other savings account. They kept pushing the JISA due to the higher interest rate, but I said no, I wasn’t having an 18 year old having a lump sum of a significant amount of money to spend as he likes (he’s only 5 just now... but I have no idea what he’ll be like at 18)

@TracyLords

I think it needs to be made clearer to parents when opening savings accounts / JiSAs that once it’s in the account they have no control over it. When opening one for DS I asked, and they told me that for the JISA I would have no access: but I would for the other savings account. They kept pushing the JISA due to the higher interest rate, but I said no, I wasn’t having an 18 year old having a lump sum of a significant amount of money to spend as he likes (he’s only 5 just now... but I have no idea what he’ll be like at 18)

How could they have made it any clearer than telling you, though?

I just googled “Junior ISA”. The first hit is Nutmeg. On the first page, on the first sentence of “What is a…” it tells you that only the child can access it. I daresay that’s pretty typical.

@Ddot

I really dont understand how 18 is a good age. How many of us were sensible at 18. Should be 25 in my opinion. You are a completely different person in those 7years

I think the child trust funds set up by the government had the intention to funding uni or further education hence 18.

Nobody looks at their young child thinking that they'll make bad choices in life.

However I know of someone who frittered savings, so learned from their family mistakes, sad but true. It made me super wary of what I do with the money I save from my kids.

It’s very clear in nutmegs website, yes. But not on all websites and communications from banks. I opened DSs in branch .

Oh Op, this is so sad and scary for you. If he's that aggressive, you really need to put your own safety first and consider kicking him out. He needs to know there are consequences to his behaviour and respecting you is the bare minimum he must do.

I know it's not the topic you posted on, but do you mind saying how / why he got so involved with drugs? My eldest is 15 and a lovely kid, so I dread to think this could happen to him in a couple of years.

@HeartsAndClubs

It may not be an issue anyway. DN turned 18 recently and rang whatever line it is you have to talk to and was told all the funds closed 2 years ago and there is no way of accessing them any more.

I don’t know anyone else who has one, but I do know that he’s been told by the gov team that he won’t be given any money.

He has been told incorrect information, my DD just had hers mature a couple of weeks back. There is a yuck girl on the gov website to fill out that sends you a letter with details of where the account is.

@RogerBroadie

The only thing you can do is to persuade him to transfer it immediately into an account that needs both your and his signature to move money. You will have to be cunning as to how and when you present this. It may only need one signature from him if you have the right piece of paper ready. Then you will have a 'continuing conversation' about when or if money becomes available. If he knows how much is in there this could be very hard, but if its thousands and he gets it then he could go deeper into drugs very quickly. And then you have to decide whether to cut him off or try to hang in and support - but that's a very hard option unless you are very rich.

Manipulating him into signing a paper that also requires her signature to move the money would most likely backfire badly on her considering that he is abusive. Based on what she has said about him, he would no doubt make her life pure hell in order to get her signature whenever he wants to withdraw his money. For the sake of her mental health, she needs to just let him access the money and tell him to move out.

@Comingup

He doesn't know but there is a substantial amount in there. This is just awful then. So even if I tell them the circumstances it will make no difference.

Nope. Not a jot.

‘DS. You get this money soon at 18.

It’s yours to spend as you please, however please be aware you will also need to move out as I am not prepared to tolerate your drug fuelled abusive behaviour anymore.

Now that you have the means to enable this it is non negotiable.’

It’s hard. I know from bitter experience.

I agree it could be clearer that money in a JISA can only be accessed by the child when they are 18. There are a lot of adult ISA accounts you can make withdrawals from so it's not an unreasonable misunderstanding.

I was offered a choice between a JISA and an account which stressed there is an interest penalty for withdrawing money. It was only when I asked if there was a penalty for withdrawing from the JISA that it was made clear that nobody could take money out until the child reached 18. We're saving his birthday and Christmas money for medium sized large things like school trips or bikes so need to be able to withdraw the money.

Maybe you should suggest he buys shares in weed companies, they are making profits, he gets to spend his money on weed without smoking it away

To the pp who asked how it happened..Good question. I know none of this should be relevant but as a bit of background, we live in a very nice area,good schools and colleges. I have a professional job and have always worked and hoped to have set a good example. I found weed on him one day, we had The Talk. He said it was for someone else, he then admitted he had done it. Gradually it just got more obvious that he was using it ,along with his friend's. Staying in bed, missing college,aggressive,money being spent at a fast rate. Totally ignoring anything I did or said. And that's where we are now. He got good gcses, he has a p/ t job which funds the habit. Before the job he went through his savings account.

I'm sure you've already done this @Comingup but what ultimatums and consequences has he had? Have you spoken to his college? Do they have any kind of drug help there?

@Comingup

I honestly don't believe you can alter the maturity date at all on these. It's 18. I am going to ring the provider just to see what the procedure will be. In answer to pp,I don't really have much support in RL unfortunately, only some who've told me what a failed parent I am ( yes really!!)and how he should be grounded, wifi switched off etc etc. This is from people who are totally clueless.Which actually is quite funny when you think of trying to do this with a volatile person bigger than you are. So really I need to look elsewhere for help and support..and MN has been brilliant on this one.

MN has been brilliant on this one. - most have told you to lie, cheat, and engage in illegal activity - they haven’t been brilliant there …

Treat your son as an adult, don’t put up with his bullying, abusive ways - agree with pp’s - tough love is needed. “I love you son, but I will not accept your abusive behaviour any longer. Either change immediately, show respect, or you move out immediately and find your own place to live”.

You can’t change your sons choices and behaviour, but you can choose how to react to it and how you deal with it. Any young person will get away with as much as they’re allowed to.

I really hope he turns the corner soon, you don’t deserve any of this, but illegally withholding his own money is not the answer.

@Comingup My heart goes out to you. Our son is now in recovery and doing well but we went through some very bad times with him, with escalating aggression culminating in physical attacks on us both.
The most important thing we learned was to get help for ourselves. We went looking for help to know how to deal with him, which we certainly needed, but we also learned that we needed to protect our own well being, mentally as well as physically. Talking with other parents and loved ones who were going through similar experiences was invaluable too. So many moments of mutual recognition!
What I want to say to you is, please reach out for help for yourself. Prioritise yourself and your own health. Most importantly, as a previous poster said, understand that you didn’t cause his addiction; you can’t control it; and you can’t cure it. Knowing this was an early step in our own step up from the despair and misery we were mired in.
We found the CRAFT service very helpful - we were lucky that our local authority funds it - but do reach out to any support service you can find, whether AA / Nar Anon or anything else.

www.verywellmind.com/the-craft-approach-to-substance-abuse-intervention-5191125