A Penny Saved: Teaching Your Children The Values And Life Skills They Need To Live In The Real World by Neale S. Godfrey with Tad Richards. New York, NY: Simon and Shuster. 1995. 240pp. $18.95.
How often do you find yourself giving in to the whims or demands of your children on a trip to the store? Who among us hasn’t experienced that mingled sense of relief and defeat as we temporarily appease a child by adding that extra (“please, mom, PLEASE”) toy/trinket/junk food item to our cart. It can be so tempting to use money to influence our children’s behavior, to avoid public embarrassment when our child is having a tantrum or to assuage our guilt about time spent apart from them. But whether we realize it or not, whenever we succumb to these temptations we are subtly giving our young children messages about money.
As our families grow, questions about when (or whether) to begin an allowance, and determination of an appropriate dollar amount set a conscious decision-making process in motion. This process accelerates as we grapple with judgments about family and household obligations. Do we expect our children to do chores in exchange for the privilege of an allowance? What chores do we expect them to do as part of their everyday responsibilities exempt from allowance? Should we let them use their money in any way they desire? Do we expect them to put money aside in savings? For what purpose should they save (clothes, college etc.)? These are but a few of the many important policy decisions we must resolve if our children are to learn sound, consistent principles around use of this vital tool.
In our materialistic, money-driven, appearances-oriented society, few of us escape having powerful emotions around money. Our relationship with money, like our relationships with family, is complicated and many-layered. A Penny Saved clarifies our misconceptions about money by directly tackling what money is as well as what it is not. These forthright explanations enable us neutralize our emotions, analyze our financial behavior and pinpoint ways in which we are mistakenly drawn into equating our net worth with our self-worth. Godfrey wisely realizes that as parents we cannot teach ethical values about money until we examine our own money-handling profile. The initial part of the book is devoted to assisting us do just that.
Later on, the book systematically addresses the vast array of questions parents face when deciding how to help their children learn about managing and valuing money. Common sense principles provide the foundation for a straight-forward structure that enables children (and their parents!) to learn the positive lessons of honesty, responsibility, cooperation and ethical behavior. The beauty of the book lies in its concrete, practical suggestions for realistically achieving these admirable goals– it is filled with work sheets, quizzes, teaching games and exercises for children of all ages.
A former President of the First Women’s Bank and founder of the First Children’s Bank, Neale Godfrey, is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees, Why Money Was Invented, and Here’s the Scoop: Follow an Ice Cream Cone Around the World. She lives with her two children in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey.
If, like me, you find you have a somewhat muddled relationship with money, you’ll find this book’s nuts-and-bolts developmental (preschool through adolescence) approach invaluable. I was able to clarify my own monetary goals and values and obtain ideas for conveying them to my children. I came away feeling that, for the first time, I had a sensible framework and a useful plan.