The Real Reason You Don’t Talk About Money With Your Kids | HMM 65

EPISODE 65

[INTRO MESSAGE]

[00:00:09.0] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the Her Money Matters Podcast, the podcast to help you take control of your finances. Join your host, motivational money coach, Jen Hemphill, as she shares with you practical, simple money insights into real life stories by women like you.

Let’s get to it!

[EPISODE]

[00:00:26.0] JH: Hey y’all. You are here and it is September, well it’s September if you are listening to this as it is released or shortly thereafter but I’m excited because my boys finally start school in a week and don’t get me wrong, I love my boys and I love spending time with them. I love having them at home but for just different time spurts right? Not a whole summer because the thing is this summer, we haven’t really had a consistent routine. Well, I guess what summers do you have a consistent routine?

But usually, we have a better routine that we’ve had this summer. So I’m really, really looking forward to just having a better routine even though we’ll have to get up even earlier just especially my son has to be at the bus stop at 6:30 in the morning. Crazy, crazy. So this month, in the month of September in the spirit of back to school we’re going to be covering some topics like first generation college students and the implications of what they need to do about money.

We’re going to talk about student loans and actually that’s going to be such a juicy episode that I’m doing it in two parts. So there’s a part one and then there’s a part two. Then we’re also going to have a special episode as well where we hear from you and some of your money advice that you would give to someone who is starting off on their own. Whether going to college or just getting in the real world after high school so I’m excited to put that together as well.

Today though we’re going to talk about a slightly touchy subject or maybe more than slightly depending on how you feel and that is why we don’t talk to our kids about money. So in today’s episode, we will talk about the one huge but simple reason you aren’t talking to your kids about money and we’re also going to share with you an easy tip to just gauge your child’s current knowledge on money, and I’m going to share with you three painless actions that you can take to make conversations easier and to set up a good foundation for your kids no matter what age they’re at. It’s never too late to start these conversations to start teaching them things about money.

But before we get into today’s show, I want to recognize one of our members of our Her Money Matters community. Her name is Britney and I’m really excited for Britney because she recently shared with us that she paid all of her credit card debt and I can’t — just seeing her excitement, it was really touching. So, Britney, I want to give you a huge congratulations on such a remarkable attitude. I know you worked hard at it and actually, just so you know Britney wrote a blog, three different blogs. So three part series and I’ll be sure to put that link in the show notes for you to check out and just for you to tell her congratulations and just tell her a good job. So celebrate with me. So Britney keep it up, I’m so excited for you.

So now let’s go ahead and get onto today’s show. So the real reason, and you probably guessed it but maybe you haven’t verbalized it, you just know you have your own gut feeling. But the real reason you aren’t talking about money to your kids boils down to a lack of confidence with your money. That’s plain and simple. You can definitely be, it’s not that you’re not confident in other areas. You can definitely be confident in other areas but when it comes to money, that’s when you cringe.

Maybe you even feel ashamed? Maybe you feel that you’ll do them a disservice and teach them wrong? The reality of the matter is that you most absolutely need to talk to your kids about money. If you aren’t feeling good about your money situation, by avoiding talking to them about money it really opens up the window for them to repeat that cycle that you gave them that example of. Think about it, when we talk about cycles of when we grew up we don’t want to, let’s say there is something our parents did or how our parents handle things that we don’t want to repeat.

Sometimes we’re aware of it and we don’t repeat it. Other times, it’s not talked about and we repeat those cycles, right? So that’s why it’s really important even if you’re not feeling that good about your money situation. If you’re feeling that confident, you have to find a way. One of the ways you can become more confident is listening to this podcast, putting some things into action, talking to other people.

Actually before you even talk to other people, even if it’s just surrounding yourself with like-minded people. A great place for it is our Her Money Matters community. It’s free, it’s on Facebook and you can join that at jenhemphill.com/community. So just take baby steps. It’s just really, really important. Again if you don’t talk to them, it just really opens up the window for them to repeat that cycle that maybe you, if it’s not a good cycle, if it’s not anything that you feel good about that you don’t want them to repeat. Because think about it, that is all they know. So you are setting that example.

That what you’re doing, what you’re saying, how you manage it, what they see that is what they know and that is their basis of what they’re going to do because they are learning from an example and you are that example so very, very important. The other thing to consider is that in schools, it varies really greatly on how much they teach about money about personal finance and at least in the US. I can’t speak for Canada or Australia or England and other countries across the world so you have to let me know. I’d love to know actually, how much or how little personal finance is taught in schools.

So in the States, it varies greatly what they teach about money and I actually covered this in episode 32 so that’s jenhemphill.com/32. I share with you some statistics and more detail about what is taught in schools in regards to financial literacy and even though there’s not necessarily one way to teach your child and when I’m talking about one child, I’m talking about a young child, a teenager, all ages it doesn’t matter. There’s not one particular way of course when teaching them, you do have to consider their age. Be aware of what they can and can’t understand especially in the younger years, right?

So again there’s no one way, there’s not one correct way. What’s really, really important and critical is just to make the effort in teaching them, right? Because it’s better to make that effort and teaching them and talking to them than to make no effort at all, right? I’m sure you agree with that. So one thing that you can do to have a better conversation to talk to your kids about money is to involve them in making decisions. Does that mean they have the final say in the decisions? No. But it really means just involving them in those decisions.

So for example, for back to school, I have been doing this for the past few years, I have my oldest do the “window shopping online” for all the back to school supplies. So he gets on the website of Amazon, Target and I think this year he also checked out Staples because earlier in August, they were really having some good deals. So I have him in charge of that and he actually does a spreadsheet of the different supplies that they need, the store, and the cost. And he’s able to compare and really see the difference in prices and he’s able to do it. I let him tell me where we need to buy these things at. Of course, I confirm and make sure of all of that but he’s usually on the mark with that. So that’s an area.

You can get them involved in grocery shopping again depending on the age of the child. With college, if your kid is going away to college, if they’re living in the dorm or maybe they will live in an apartment, get them involved in knowing the costs of, whether it’s the apartment, the dorm, the food. I know dorm living is a little bit different but get them involved in all of that. Buying the furniture, beds, and things to furnish their dorm or their apartment. So get them involved and ask questions. That is really the thing. So that’s where you’ll be able to talk to them and have those conversations.

So ask those questions, ask why would they make this certain decision? So why would they decide over purchasing A over B? Or whatever the case maybe in your scenario. So it will really give you some insight as to what they’re thinking. Besides thinking, it really gives you the opportunity to know what they know, what they don’t know, what they understand, what they don’t understand and again, just ask the question “why?” and that’s just a really simple question. When you see them reasoning as to why we should do this or we should do that, why? "Why?" is such a great question.

So doing this as I mentioned, you’ll get to understand better what your child knows already about money, and it teaches your child no matter the age and I’m saying child but this is all ages to be at ease when talking about money. So that’s the second thing that it teaches and that is something that you want your child to have. It’s that confidence to be talking freely about money, especially if you haven’t had that confidence yourself.

And some activities, some simple, just painless activities that you can do, one is to be aware of what you’re saying. If you catch yourself saying things like, “We can’t afford this” or “We’re broke” or “We never would be able to buy that” in front of them, forgive yourself. Don’t be so hard on yourself, but the idea is to catch yourself and correct it to a better phrase. So if you’re saying “we can’t afford this”, you can correct it to a better phrase like “let’s see how we can make this happen,” okay?

So make it more of a positive tone phrase and it’s incredible what happens in the shift when you change that phrase, what happens in the brain and it gets your brain to start thinking of ways to make it happen. Another thing that you can do is to really become aware of what your child’s school teaches and what it doesn’t teach in personal finance. So call the school, maybe they have that information online. The real important thing here is just to be aware of what they teach, what they don’t teach. You can ask your kids questions.

Or maybe if they don’t teach, you can supplement and I’ll put in the show notes a great site. I also shared that on the other episode that I mentioned earlier but there is a great site where it shares different activities that you can do with your child to help them learn about money. And again, when you ask your kids questions as far as what they’re learning in school about what they’re budgeting, about the checkbook or credit cards or whatever else they’re teaching, always ask the question, “Why do you think this? Or why do you feel this way?” It’s such a great question for a deeper conversation and it’s an easy way to have a conversation and the other thought is it can also be payback for their toddler years when they repeated the question why so many times. I remember those days.

Another thing that you can do, an easy thing that you can do is go to your local library. Look for books that talk about money, that teaches money. It can be books in story books. They definitely have those for younger kids and even a little older kids. And in the show notes, I will share a list of books that you can look for. It’s not obviously a full-fledged list but it will give you some books to look for in the different age groups from the younger years to almost the teenage years.

So that is a super easy way to have more money conversations because they read the book or you read the book to them and you can definitely come up with questions and have those money conversations and that just makes it easier to talk about money. So I hope that you have found that helpful and that it makes it easier for you to talk to your kids about money and doing these things is going to make you more confident. It’s going to ease not just talking about money to your kids but just talking, having those money conversations in general. Whether with your spouse, maybe another family member or friends. It’s just so important to have that confidence.

So that is it for today. I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to join me and be sure to check out the show notes for those different things I mentioned at jenhemphill.com/65. So thanks again for listening and we’ll talk again next Thursday.

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