What you are actually being told

When a nineteen-year-old says they want to start something, they are usually not proposing to skip the qualification and they are rarely asking for money. They are saying that the path in front of them does not look like the only one, and they are watching to see whether you treat that as a discussion or as a problem to be managed.

The first response is the one that decides how much you hear afterwards. A response that goes straight to risk teaches them to stop telling you — not to stop doing it. Almost every parent who ends up finding out late got there by being right too quickly the first time.