The economic downturn is forcing parents to cut back on purchases like expensive clothes for their children. Wendy Postle, left, shopped with her daughter, Kaitlyn, 15, center.

By JAN HOFFMAN

Indulged. Entitled. Those labels have been applied to middle-class and affluent teenagers born after the last major economic downturn in the United States, in the late 1980s. But as the economy totters, many families have no choice but to cut back, which may lead to a shift in their thinking about money and permissiveness.
“Parents are suddenly saying ‘no’ and their kids are saying, ‘What do you mean?’” said Robert D. Manning, an economist in New York.
Family therapists, teachers and parents tell anecdotes about teenagers who are badly rattled by the news . A daughter is shaken as her mother calls for an emergency family meeting. The son of a Wall Street financier whose fortune has collapsed tauntingly tells his father he can take care of himself: he will sell more marijuana.
“It is an unbelievable shock to affluent families that their lifestyles are gone for good,” Dr. Manning said, “and their children are ill prepared for it.”
Wendy Postle’s two teenage children, Zach, 13, and Kaitlyn, 15, asked whether the family was poor. Mrs. Postle, who teaches economics and whose husband manages heating and cooling installations, felt insulted.
The family was not poverty-stricken, she responded, but staying solvent was costly. Although many parents consider finances the province of grown-ups, Mrs. Postle decided her children were too insulated. She showed them the monthly bills.
The teenagers were stunned. When her son saw the mortgage bill he thought it was an annual payment. American teenagers, many of whom have weak quantitative skills, are generally naive about finance.
In a 2007 study for Charles Schwab, the financial services company, 62 percent of teenagers believed they were prepared to deal with the financial world after high school. That boast was undercut when they were probed about topics like check-writing and paying bills.
One recent morning, students in an economics seminar at Elisabeth Irwin High School, a private school in Manhattan, displayed an emerging grasp of the financial meltdown. But when discussing their personal finances, many seemed bewildered.
Still, they said they feel the pressure and the desire to acquire . “The stuff it takes for them to be perceived as middle class is extraordinary,” said Tom Murphy, who taught the seminar. “Laptops, Xboxes, iPods, phones - and it’s nonnegotiable.”
In familial relationships, money can be a proxy for love and trust, said Steven J. Goldstein, a psychologist in Manhattan. When money has to be limited, underlying tensions become exacerbated. But for some families, he added, the financial crisis has compelled them to articulate values and priorities for the first time.
In September, Hildegaard Link’s two daught ers, 15 and 11, rushed home, frightened by headlines about the stock market. The older one “totally freaked out,” recalled Ms. Link, a civil engineer in New York.
Ms. Link reassured her but asked whether everyone could do with less. The girls made choices: lessons for either drum or violin, every two weeks; fewer restaurant dinners; one new school outfit. “They were not resentful,” Ms. Link said. “They were relieved to be part of the process.”