Written by: Chris Carnazzo | Your Money Cues
He seemed like a good kid: sincere, apologetic, and determined to do better. But the teenager kept overdrawing his account, racking up fees, and missing payments he was supposed to handle. His account was funded regularly by a family trust, yet the pattern continued. To the people around him, it looked as though he was careless with money or simply was not trying hard enough.
Situations like this can quietly find their way into a financial planning office. Sometimes the neurodivergent person isn’t the client. Instead, he or she is a child or grandchild and part of the estate plan. The family wants to know whether that person will be able to manage an inheritance. When a person’s difficulties are undiagnosed, or when an existing diagnosis does not tell the whole story, mishandling money can easily be mistaken for a character flaw.
A 2012 review of ADHD stigma research by psychologist Anna K. Mueller and her colleagues discussed a study in which peers who attributed a child’s condition to low effort were more likely to distance themselves. The researchers described this as an “individualistic, moralistic and blaming view.” In everyday conversation, people are more likely to use words such as lazy, spoiled, or irresponsible.
Jim Grubman, PhD, was well prepared to see past that explanation. Before moving into family wealth consulting, he worked as a clinical psychologist and neuropsychologist specializing in ADHD and learning disorders. He told me about a teenager whose learning difficulties were being mistaken for financial irresponsibility.
The boy did not have an ADHD diagnosis, although he had a known learning disorder that affected his basic math skills. His family’s advisers asked Grubman to help determine what was going wrong.
Grubman asked the teenager to explain his money routine one step at a time. He understood that money from the trust entered his account each month. He was less clear about some of his bills because of his dyscalculia. Grubman then asked him to explain how the ATM worked and how money moved from his account into his hand.
“I don’t know,” the teenager said.
The ATM was a black box to him. It dispensed cash, but he did not understand how a withdrawal affected his account balance.
As Grubman put it, “Everyone assumed he knew how an ATM works because, well, they just do.” No one had thought to ask, and the teenager had kept his confusion to himself.
Previous attempts to explain electronic money relied on diagrams. The boxes and arrows only confused him further. Grubman tried a different approach. With the teenager’s permission, he temporarily replaced ATM withdrawals with visits to a human teller. He wrote out the movement of money in plain sentences. Then he used play money and family office staff to act out each step, from the trust to the bank, the account, the ATM, and finally the teenager’s hands.
“I just imagine it as like a human teller, only a machine,” the young man told him.
Grubman gradually reintroduced the ATM and reduced the teller’s role. With help monitoring his balance and, later, using smartphone apps, the teenager learned to stay within his budget. Grubman heard that after college, the young man received larger distributions from his trust and continued to manage his money successfully with some accommodations.
Financial planners do not need to diagnose clients or write behavior plans. It would be good to know, however, that apparently irresponsible behavior may have another explanation. A useful first step can be slowing down, asking simple questions, and listening carefully to the answers. When the problem requires expertise outside the adviser’s role, it is time to bring in someone who can develop accommodations suited to how that person processes information.
It reminds me of something Rick Kahler used to say when I took his class, Facilitating Financial Health, and it is the tagline of his Financial Therapy Podcast:
“Every financial behavior, whether it appears illogical to you or others, makes perfect sense when we understand the underlying beliefs, feelings, and thoughts.”
Once you get to know a person’s wiring, all the seemingly irrational or irresponsible behavior begins to make much more sense. You just have to take the time to get curious.
