Money Talk: The 10Best Things You Can Say to Your Children about Money Thomas Haller and Chick Moorman www.personalpowerpress.com Many parents do not know how, do not want to, or lack the communicationskills necessary to talk to their children about money in general. Sowhen a money crisis develops, the potential to pass fearful andnegative attitudes towards money to the next generation increases. How effective are you at talking about money? What words do you usewhen you talk about money in front of or directly to your children?Below you will find a list of the ten best things you can say to yourchildren about money. Use it to gage your money talk skill level. 10 Best "It's allowance time. Everybody get your envelopes!" Oneof themain reasons for having allowances is to teach children aboutbudgeting. The envelope system will help you do that. Children areconcrete thinkers. That means if it is not in their hands, it is not intheir minds. Envelopes will help you make the teaching of budgeting aconcrete process. Label envelopes with several budget areas, includingsavings, investment, charity, and spending. Children can divide theirown allowance by placing the amount of money they choose in theappropriate envelopes. "I'm willing to pay part of it." This phrase is usefulwhen yourchild wants something that exceeds the budgeted amount you hadearmarked in your budget. If you had $80 set aside for sneakers andthey want a pair that costs over $100, this sentence defines yourlimit. It also invites the child to take responsibility for coming upwith the difference. It curbs feelings of entitlement and allowschildren to take ownership for achieving their desires. In addition, ifsome of their money is invested in the article, they are more likely totake care of it. "Did you bring any of your money?" This money talkquestion ishelpful for those situations where children ask impulsively for thingswhile you are shopping. It helps them to see that they need to haveforethought in the money purchases they make. "The car needs to be washed. What do you think that's worth?"Thepurpose of a child's allowance is so they can learn how to spend, save,and use money. If they want or feel they need more money than theallowance provides, there are additional ways to get it. Doing out ofthe ordinary jobs around the house, over and above their normal chores,is one way for them to earn additional income. This will help theminternalize the concept that if they want more they can work more. "Help me figure out the tip." This type of money talkhelpschildren in several ways. In addition to providing a real life exampleto use basic math skills, it also gives children the awareness of thecost of the meal so they can appreciate what is being provided forthem. Learning about tipping also gives children the message that beingappreciative for the service provided is expressed in the form of atip. "Oh, I think you gave me the wrong change." Allow yourchildrento overhear you telling cashiers or waiters when the change isincorrect. If you were short changed it models sticking up foryourself. If you received too much change, your words demonstratehonesty and communicate integrity around money. "Our charity jar is almost full. What should we do with themoneythis time?" Teach the charity habit by contributing to a charityjarregularly at allowance time. Set a goal as a family as to how much youwant to accumulate during a specific time frame. Watch as the jar fillsup with the individual family contributions. Decide together where todonate the money. Give your children opportunities to have input onthis important decision. "Wow! I found a quarter. The money just keeps on coming."Money comes to us in a variety of ways and inunexpected times and places. Finding a coin on the ground is a signthat the universe is continually active in providing money for thosewho are open to receiving it. Stay open and allow the AttractionPrinciple to bring you money even in the smallest of ways. It is a signthat more it is on the way. Appreciate what you receive verbally sothat your children can hear your gratefulness. "Bummer. Sounds like you have a money problem. What can you doabout it?" This piece ofmoney talk communicates to children that the current money problem theyface is their problem. It informs them you will be the supportivelistener, but not a rescuer. With this style of language, you alsoremind yourself that there are times when allowing children toexperience the consequences of their actions and choices is the bestway for them to learn. "You don't have to wait until you're a grown-up." Childrencan makemoney, own a business, save money, invest in the stock market, and giveto charities. Money is not just for adults. It is for anyone who hasparents that are willing to help their children become financiallyliterate. Chick Moorman and Thomas Haller are the authors of The 10Commitments:Parenting with Purpose . They are two of the world's foremostauthorities on raising responsible, caring, confident children. Theypublish a free monthly e-zine for parents. To sign up for it or toobtain more information about how they can help you or your group meetyour parenting needs, visit their website today: www.personalpowerpress.com .Permission granted for useon DrLaura.com. More >>

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'Yes' is a Good Thing - In Moderation By Laura Stack, The Productivity Proreg; www.TheProductivityPro.com Have you ever found yourself trying to make plans with a friend, just play with the kids, or do something fun for yourself, only to find your planner so full that "maybe next month" is the best you can do? If so, you probably have that old Ado Annie syndrome...you're "just a girl who cain't say no." We all want to feel like great parents, accomplished at work, and like we're giving back to the community. It is human nature to want success and to please others. It's good to feel that way - to be ambitious, to be busy, and to get things done. But how much is too much? "Yes" is a good thing - in moderation. Productivity doesn't mean filling every moment of every day with tasks that further some agenda. Prepare yourself for upcoming burnout if your schedule is so full that there isn't time for family, friends and yes - YOU. Because you are good at what you do, people will always ask for your help and your input. They want you to join another board, sew the costumes for the school play, or write the homeowner's association newsletter. Just because your calendar has a blank spot, it doesn't mean you have to say "yes" when someone wants to fill that time. Look at your priorities and take the time to set boundaries for yourself so that you only take on the tasks and activities you truly can and want to complete. What activities on your task list can you outsource? What can you eliminate completely? You know you're going to get a call or email soon saying "will you...?" Be prepared. Take a deep breath and say it with me - "No." See - it wasn't that hard, was it? Well, it may take some practice, but you CAN do it! It's OK to say "no" without guilt and without apology. Give yourself that permission right now. Your time is valuable. You simply have to leave some of it for yourself to enjoy those things in life which bring you pleasure and joy. That's the kind of time that is the juice which "recharges your battery" so that when you are on task you can be productive. Give yourself the gift of some time. You're worth it. (c) 2008 Laura Stack. Laura Stack ( www.TheProductivityPro.com/blog ) is a motivational speaker who helps busy workers Leave the Office Earlierreg; with Maximum Results in Minimum Time#8482;. She is the president of The Productivity Proreg;, Inc., a time management firm specializing in productivity improvement in high-stress organizations. Since 1992, Laura has given presentations on improving output, lowering stress, and saving time in today's workplaces, for companies such as Microsoft, Starbucks, and 3M. She is the bestselling author of The Exhaustion Cure (2008); Find More Time (2006); and Leave the Office Earlier (2004). To have Laura speak at your event, call 303-471-7401. Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com. More >>

Reducing Holiday Meal Frenzy By Cheryl Tallman and Joan Ahlers www.FreshBaby.com Is it your turn to host Thanksgiving this year? Lucky You! The holiday season can be stressful enough without the extra added pressure of making one of the "big" holiday meals for 15 of your closest relatives or friends. We wish we could give you an "Easy" button for your holiday meals, but the best we can do is offer you a few terrific tips that will help you get through it smoothly! Write down the menu: The best way to get started with the task of planning a big meal is to develop the menu. This can be lots of fun. Start this task with the guest head count divided into adults and kids and before setting the dinner menu, check with your guests about any food allergies. Buy a few magazines or look through cookbooks for ideas. Unless you have a lot of cooking experience, we don't recommend picking all new dishes. It's best to pick a few new items and few stand-bys that you know how to make. Don't overdo it: Holiday meals should be feasts, but you don't need to make an entire cookbook worth of side dishes. Side dishes are often the most time consuming part of making the meal. Select a menu that includes 4-5 side dishes that compliment your main entreacute;e. Accept help: When you call your relatives and friends to extend the invitation, be ready when they offer "What can we bring?" Most people grew up with holiday meals where everyone pitched in. Try to match up people with things they do best. Have a suggestion ready, but don#146;t be too specific. Ask your friend to bring a vegetable dish, not broccoli with hazelnuts in a sherry cream sauce. Or you can ask if they have a special dish and let them tell you what it will be. Adjust your menu accordingly. If your relative does not cook, ask him to bring a no cook item - wine, juice, dinner rolls, etc. Select make-ahead foods: The less you need to do the day of the event, the more you will enjoy it. Most foods can be made 2-4 days ahead and warmed up prior to serving. Many foods often taste better when they have a chance to set. Review your menu and identify the dishes you will make ahead of time and set aside the time to make them a few days before the event. Buy prepared foods and ingredients: It's a holiday meal not a test to see if you can perform the culinary act of making dinner for 20 completely from scratch. Don't be afraid to buy prepared ingredients that will make meal prep easier - canned soup stock, chopped nuts and dates, stuffing mix, etc... If you don't know how to make gravy, buy it. If you are not a baker, ask someone to bring desserts or buy them at the bakery. Get the table ready: Set the table the night the before. Get your serving dishes ready too. Write down your menu items on small pieces of paper and place each piece of paper in the serving dish you plan to use for that food. If you are serving buffet style, set out the serving dishes as you want them for the meal. This organization allows guests who volunteer to help get dinner on the table to be most helpful. About the authors: Cheryl Tallman and Joan Ahlers are sisters, the mothers of five children and founders of Fresh Baby ( www.FreshBaby.com ). They are the creators of the award-winning So Easy Baby Food Kit and Good Clean Fun Placemats, available at many fine specialty stores and national chains including Target and Whole Foods Markets Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com. More >>

Bailout Plan for Parents By Chick Moorman and Thomas Haller www.personalpowerpress.com Bailout Wall Street. Bailout the banks. Bailout the people and institutions that got us in this financial mess to begin with. Is that a good idea? Who knows? Certainly not us. We do not know enough, nor do we claim to know enough, about the current economic crisis facing our nation to be telling people what to do about it. We do not have sufficient understanding of all the interlocking ramifications of doing or not doing a financial bailout. The situation is outside our area of expertise. What is not beyond our level of expertise, however, is what to do about the issue of bailing out our children. We firmly believe it is not helpful to rescue, save, or bailout children for their inappropriate choices or actions that result in natural consequences that would not be a health or safety risk to them. If fact, it is harmful. When you do so, you teach your children they do not have to be responsible for their choices and actions. You show them that the cause-and-effect relationship that is at work in the universe does not apply to them because someone will always be there to save them from experiencing the legitimate consequences of their actions. Do you bail out your children? Are you inadvertently teaching them they do not have to act responsibly because they will not be held accountable for their choices? Consider the following. If you are running lunch, homework, gym shoes, band instruments, or other forgotten objects to school, you are bailing out your children. You are not giving them a real reason to remember the forgotten object next time. Your job is to teach your children a system for remembering. Their job is to use the system. Do you return home to get forgotten shin guards for soccer or a teeth guard for karate? Again, teach your children a system for remembering. If they forget, allow them to experience the natural outcome of their behavior. Give them a real life reason to remember in the future. Why would they ever have to remember if someone keeps bailing them out? Do you give advances on allowances? If so, you are rescuing. One of the reasons for allowances is to help children learn that if they spend it all the first day, there is no more until next week. You are depriving children of the opportunity to learn an important lesson when you bail them out. Allow them to deal with the outcomes of their spending, saving, or budgeting choices. Are you a rescuer with your child's homework? Do you care more than they do? To step out of the rescuer role, be available to help with homework, set a study time and create a study place. Once again, your job is to create the structure. Their job is to use it. If they come to you at 9 p.m. and inform you they need a poster board for a project, resist the urge to jump in the car and drive all over town trying to find one. Procrastination on their part does not necessitate an emergency on your part. Allow them to experience the consequences. When your teen gets in over her head with a cell phone bill, parking tickets, or lack of gas for her car, rejoice. She now has the opportunity to learn a valuable lesson about the importance of keeping control of her spending behavior. Allow her to learn the lesson. If she doesn't learn it now, she will have to learn it later when the stakes are higher. Debrief the situation with her and help her create a system for keeping track of her spending. This will come in handy when she goes off to college and someone offers her a free T-shirt if she accepts a credit card. Better to learn this lesson now rather than later. Did your son visit an inappropriate Web site on your computer? If so, it is time to remind him that opportunity equals responsibility. When responsibility in using the computer goes down, so does the opportunity to use it. Hold him accountable so he can experience the consequences before he gets another opportunity to use the computer. Then increase your level of monitoring and reset your Internet safety programs. If your child accidentally breaks a neighbor's window with a football, help her create a plan for paying for it. Help her learn that her actions produce results and that she is responsible for the results she creates. If you bail her out by paying for the window without having a payment plan in place, you teach her that she doesn't have to be responsible for her actions. Resist the urge to bailout your children regardless of what you see modeled in our culture or government. When you regularly hold your children accountable (with an open heart), they will learn to see themselves as the cause of the results they produce. As you help them experience the direct relationship between cause and effect, they will become more empowered and view themselves as both capable and responsible. We could use more of that attitude today in our government, in our businesses, and in our world. Chick Moorman and Thomas Haller are the authors of The 10 Commitments: Parenting with Purpose. They are two of the world's foremost authorities on raising responsible, caring, confident children. They publish a free monthly e-zine for parents. To sign up for it or to obtain more information about how they can help you or your group meet your parenting needs, visit their website today: www.personalpowerpress.com . Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com. More >>

Let's Be Clear: 3 Simple Guidelines for Airing Grievances Nicely By Winn Claybaugh www.beniceorelse.com I used to believe that if I had a grievance, opposing opinion, or legitimate complaint with someone, I had to bite my tongue to be perceived as a nice guy. On those rare occasions when I chose to speak up, I felt as though I was attacking the person. Since I'm not the attacking type, I learned to keep it to myself, all locked inside. If you believe in a mind-body connection, as I firmly do, you know that bottling things up and keeping them inside can lead to stress, uneasiness, and even disease. In every marriage, you'll occasionally have disagreements and do the wrong thing. To keep from making yourself unhealthy, and to make sure your marriage grows and flourishes, you need to practice being clear. Here are some guidelines. Keep It Between the Two of You In high school, you'd get four friends on "your side" by telling them about the horrible thing someone else had done to you. Then you'd go to that person and say, "You're an idiot, and they all agree with me!" When disagreements arise, keep them between the two of you. Don't allow little battles to interrupt the sanctity of your marriage. It's so easy to divide a household with the tiny, seemingly insignificant comments you make about your spouse. Always Clear Privately If anyone else is there when you share and clear, the person you're clearing with will feel ganged-up on and attacked, and will therefore feel the need to defend themselves. One-on-one feels like communication from a friend and loved one. Two-on-one feels like a firing squad. Stick to the Facts Share only the actions and words that upset or hurt you. Let's say your spouse said something mean or unflattering about you at a party. Unless your spouse always says mean things about you in public, this was just a case being human and perhaps it was an isolated incident. Rather than making the statement, "You're such a mean person," simply describe how you felt when you heard the comments. Focus on Your Desired End Result Decide in advance how the best possible outcome would look and feel. Sometimes you'll be tempted to rehearse a horrible outcome in your mind. You imagine yourself telling your spouse how he or she wronged you, and then you picture your spouse firing back a defense and subsequent attack. As you plan to clear with your spouse, imagine the two of you talking it through, confirming your love and appreciation for each other, and ending the chat with a hug. Your end-result mantra could be: "You and I will be closer for having gone through this. I will honor myself and I will honor you as I clear with you. This experience is for our growth." Winn Claybaugh is the author of Be Nice (Or Else!) and "one of the best motivational speakers in the country," according to CNN's Larry King. A business owner for over 25 years with over 8,000 people in his organization, Winn is the co-owner of hair care giant Paul Mitchell's school division. Winn has helped thousands of businesses build their brands and create successful working cultures. His clients include Southwest Airlines, the Irvine Company, Vidal Sassoon, Entertainment Tonight, Mattel, For Rent magazine, Structure/Limited/Express, and others. Winn is a frequent guest on national radio and a regular contributor to online publications. Visit www.BeNiceOrElse.com to sign up for his free monthly Be Nice (Or Else!) newsletter. Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com. More >>

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Families in Nature: Connecting School Children with Nature By Mark Stevens www.luisasnature.com Outings in nature are vital for school kids to appreciate nature and make them well rounded in this computer age. Schools should have science rooms in which children-under adult supervision-can observe plants, animals and elements. A class walk through the local woods is another great way for children to get to know the local terrain. Interaction with nature should take place at least once a day. This does not mean that the children need to take a field trip every day. Once children are inspired to "see" things in nature, they will be creative on their own in the science classroom and during school recess in the immediate fields surrounding the school. To inspire children, school events can range from a small hike along a dirt path, on which the ants show off their busy habits, to identifying trees, looking at growth and movement near and in streams-pointing out the flowers, moss and other plants and animals that live on or near them. A schoolbook that teaches children about nature is good. But the experience is not complete until the kids have smelled and touched the grass, bark, water, mushrooms and insects both in and outside of the classroom. At the end of a field trip through the woods, it is a special treat for the children to take a break in a picnic area to enjoy some of the local fruits and vegetables. This is a great way to connect boys and girls to the earth. School children not only learn about nature but they grow their social skills by talking with their classmates and teacher about their new discoveries and observations. Group and team challenges such as crossing a stream together or finding leaves or nuts in the woods necessitate cooperation and communication. This gives the children practical experience and common sense that they can use later in nature and in life in general. Observing nature takes a fair share of patience as well. To see the habits of birds and squirrels, it is important to be quiet and observant. To wait for a gopher to come out of its hole might often necessitate too much patience. In such situations a bit of luck is involved. But the more knowledge kids gain, the more likely they will get in tune with the animals#146; habits, such as the feeding time when the animals are more likely to come out and "play." Climbing and building outdoors help kids learn about the elements of nature such as sand and stone. Hiking and climbing promote physical fitness. Building with the elements helps advance scientific knowledge to better understand the text in schoolbooks and maybe even inspire the next generation forest rangers and architects. A nighttime outing under the stars can literally open new worlds for school children. Schools can help educate children in nature, so that our next generation can not only appreciate but also better manage the elements of this small world. Families in Nature is written by Mark J. Stevens, author of LUISA'S NATURE (Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing, Spring 2008). Mark is a news journalist currently working in Europe. Fluent in French, Spanish, and German, he has enjoyed extensive travel much of his life. Shaped by the rural New Jersey setting of his youth, Mark continues to explore the richness of nature with his wife and two children on the outskirts of Munich, Germany. He also belongs to several parenting and nature organizations in the U.S. and Europe. For more information, visit www.luisasnature.com . Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com. More >>