Mary Hunt - Raising Financially Confident Kids

s omething amazing happened on my way to getting a financially confident life. My kids got one too.

While our two boys, Jeremy and Josh, were still young, I awoke from a twelve-year spending coma to discover we were in the fast lane to financial ruin. I had done terribly with money and credit cards. Our situation brought new meaning to the term debilitating debt . We were in a horrible jam.

But even worse than the debt was this terrifying thought: What if our kids turn out like me? Were they learning from my behavior that they too were entitled to have what they wanted even when they didnt have the money to pay for it? Were they learning to worship money? Did they notice their mom trusting Visa and MasterCard more than she trusted their dadher husbandto take care of the family? Did she really trust God the way she believed she was demonstrating to her children through her life?

Clearly, I was setting my kids up to become powerless pawns in the hands of an eager credit industry that is poised to enslave them to a lifetime of debt.

My husband, Harold, and I had so many hopes and dreams for our childrenprecious gifts we believed were given to us for only a while to care for, develop, train, and love and then to let go. If things didnt change, we were about to mess them up. Big time.

We had to find a way to teach our boys the truth about consumer debt and money. They had to learn that if they opened their lives to it, debt could prevent them from reaching their potential. Debt could negatively impact their adult relationships, diminish their options, ruin their futures, and destroy their dreams.

Debt prevention was what we wanted to achieve with our boys. But how do you do that with kids who dont even know what debt is?

It seemed to me that if we could teach our children not to touch a hot stove, we could train them not to get burned by the lure of credit-card debt. If we could train them to look both ways before crossing the street, we could teach them to carefully read the fine print. If we could instill in them the value of delaying gratification, that could become a lifetime behavior.

Thats when we came up with the idea to debt-proof our boys by helping them develop financial intelligence, starting when they were quite young. Then when the time came, they would leave home with the skills, knowledge, and confidence to make wise financial decisions. We were on a mission to raise financially confident adults.

The following years proved to be remarkable in the Hunt home. I had a lot to learn and a huge financial mess to clean up. And the boys? They learned about personal finance right along with me.

Harold and I designed an aggressive, yet simple, kid-sized financial plan. In a nutshell, we assigned to each of our children a portion of the familys financial resources to manage, an amount commensurate with each sons age, needs, and ability. Yes, we handed over fairly large sums of money to their discretion and control. They had to go through basic training. They had rules to obey about giving and saving. They had expenses to cover, decisions to make, and consequences to suffer.

Because money management requires lots of responsibility, our boys learned the fundamentals of personal finance. They learned that to whom much is given much is required. Sure, they were just kids, but they werent playactingthis was the real thing. And our kids rose to the occasion. Wow, did they rise!

If our plan to debt-proof our kids had been a miserable failure, you can be sure you wouldnt be holding this book in your hands. And had I known I would someday tell the story and offer the plan to you, I wouldve taken notes.

Thankfully, I have something better than notes or lesson plans. I have the living results in Jeremy and Josh. I am eager to let you get to know them better in the chapters that follow.

If Ive learned anything from the stacks of mail Ive received over the years, its that kidsfrom all demographicsare leaving home and going into the real world knowing a lot of things. But money management is not one of them.

This is a chilling fact considering that the real world is where 90 percent of all divorces find their roots in financial disharmony; is poised and ready to lure your unsuspecting young adult into its horrible pit of non-mortgage consumer debt. No doubt about itwhat kids dont know about money can hurt them.

As parents, we make sure our kids get spiritual training, summer camp, and even private school. We enroll them in sports and expose them to music and computers to enrich, challenge, and develop them. We dole out wads of cash to make them good drivers. But a financial learners permit? Hands-on money training? Judging from the heart-wrenching letters Im receiving from parents, both single and married, I can tell you its not happening.

Financial awareness shapes responsible kids. Teaching kids about money allows them to experience real-life situations and make real decisions and mistakes while within the safety net of their parents care.

The debt-proofing process will make the adolescent years so much happier around your house. Thats because the process builds a childs confidence and problem-solving abilities and makes basic mathematic skills more practical. It teaches values such as honesty, responsibility, generosity, and hard work. And this process of debt-proofing kids is gratifying for parents because the results are measurable and tangible.

Because money has such universal appeal, Ive found that kids respond to it in similar ways, regardless of their temperaments or particular natural bents. Take my kids for instance. You could not find two more opposite people, unless, of course, you consider their parents.

Jeremy is gregarious, goal-oriented, excited, and, shall we say, controlling. Josh, our procrastinator, on the other hand, is calm, relaxed, and easygoing. But as different as they are in personality and temperament, when given the opportunity to manage money and make their own decisions, both became responsible and confident in all areas of their livesnot just in finances. Jeremy jumped right in and took control. Josh was less sure in the beginning and asked for advice along the way. But in the end, our plan produced the same result even though our subjects were and continue to be very different.