Back to School Means the Kids Are Growing Up — All of Them

Kids grow up fast. Some just happen to have four legs.

Back-to-school season is a natural reminder of how quickly time passes. One year they are starting kindergarten, and seemingly overnight they are graduating from high school, heading off to college, and turning 18.

That milestone is also an important estate-planning reminder.

An estate plan should not be something that is signed once and then forgotten. We generally recommend reviewing your plan every few years and whenever there has been a meaningful change in your family. Sometimes that change is a marriage, divorce, birth or death. Other times, it is simply the passage of time.

A child turning 18 is a perfect example.

Once your child turns 18, he or she is legally an adult. Until then, parents generally make medical decisions for their minor children. After age 18, however, being the parent does not automatically give you the same legal authority to make decisions for your son or daughter.

That distinction can become very important in an emergency.

Consider a recent high school graduate heading off to college who is seriously injured in an automobile accident and temporarily unable to communicate with doctors. If that young adult has signed a Patient Advocate Designation naming a parent or another trusted person, the designated patient advocate can step in when the legal requirements for activating that authority have been satisfied.

Without that planning, a parent does not automatically become the legal decision-maker simply because he or she is Mom or Dad. Depending on the circumstances, the family may have to seek authority through the probate court, including potentially petitioning for the appointment of a guardian.

There is also a related privacy issue. Once a child is an adult, parents should not assume they will continue to have unrestricted access to the child’s medical information. A young adult can sign a HIPAA authorization permitting health-care providers to share specified medical information with a parent or another trusted person.

A HIPAA authorization is separate from the Patient Advocate Designation and can be useful even when the young adult is fully capable of making his or her own medical decisions.

For many 18-year-olds, a comprehensive estate plan may not yet be necessary. But every adult should at least consider who they would want making medical decisions if they could not speak for themselves—and put that decision in writing before an emergency occurs.

So, as the kids head back to school this fall, take a moment to think about how much has changed in your own family.

Review your estate plan to make sure it still reflects your current circumstances, and if one of your kids has recently turned 18, help them take the first steps toward planning as an adult.

Because whether they are headed to college or just climbing around the pen, kids grow up faster than we think.