Have you ever had one of those days when, as the day goes on, you feel like the world isn’t just trying to nudge you, it’s trying to hit you over the head with a frying pan to get you to pay attention to something?

I started by spending a really lovely day mentoring and teaching on college funding, with a family that I know and love. We talked about all of the ways they could help their child really grow to be on good solid ground with money. Knowing how to earn, save, spend, and give responsibly, especially in the context of making a good college choice, college major choice, and then earning a living wage, and how as parents we can lay the foundation for future financial success.

Then this evening, I was whacked over the head while catching up on my professional groups – three separate discussions that included recommendations on books about how to help kids be good with money.

• A request from another financial planner, childless, who was getting asked for parenting advice from one of her clients. The client was specifically concerned about not raising a spoiled child. One of the recommendations there was The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money, by Ron Lieber. I know I’ve heard this book recommended before, and I thought I’d read it, but it must have been that I meant to read it because it’s not on my list of books I’ve read. Therefore onto my hold list at the Rochester Public Library it went, although since I get book recommendations faster than I can get through them (even at 3 non-fiction books a month), I’ve suspended that hold for a while to make sure it doesn’t show up immediately.
• Doug Nordman, author of the Military Guide to Financial Independence and Retirement, who I’ve heard speak on podcasts and thought well of from there, has written a book that released last fall, Raising Your Money Savvy Family for Next Generation Financial Independence, which is available to Rochesterites through the Inter-library Loan at the Rochester Public Library.
• And thankfully for the sake of not being swamped with a month’s worth of reading recommendations all in one night, this last one hasn’t yet been published. But I just learned about, and am looking forward to, Rob Phelan’s upcoming children’s book, M is for Money.

One of the problems Americans have about money is that many households refuse to talk about it, just like we don’t talk to our kids about sex. We teach them about and shelter them from everything under the sun, from how to cross the street, to how to approach a new dog, but we suddenly stop talking when it comes to two of the most important topics that can drive their lives? How backwards is that!

Of course, you’re probably still wondering what my advice was to the childless financial planner whose client is searching out guidance on raising a child to not be spoiled. Here you go:

“Consistently give the children what they need, not what they want or what you could afford. And do the same for yourself. Know what you want to teach/what you want them to learn (she’s doing good here!). Educate at all opportunities, if necessary use words (eg educate via words, actions, who you voluntarily expose the children to, and anything else you can think of). Repeat for life.”

Does your family talk about money? What topics are on your list to make sure you’re teaching on? And how are you presenting and reinforcing those lessons?