Explaining Financial Troubles to the Kids

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:57:00 GMT

With disappearing 401(k) savings, exorbitant gas prices, and piling up medical bills, many families are being forced to make serious changes in their spending patterns. This can be a shock for teens and preteens who grew up in the 90s, during affluent times in which the prevailing wisdom in the U.S. extolled making your kids happy. Average teen allowances nationwide are upwards of $100 a month, and many high schoolers have credit cards.

But last week, a survey found that teen spending had dropped by 27 percent. Considering that much of this spending money comes from allowances or gifts, we can be pretty sure the kids are not being thrifty out of choice.

As parents struggle to explain the crisis to teens freaked out by dire newspaper headlines and cutbacks in family expenditures, parents may see their kids as spoiled or bratty, while teens may see their parents as unreasonable or over-anxious. One mother interviewed by the New York Times started showing her confused and upset teenagers the monthly bills. Another father threatened to charge his kids’ friends rent for sleeping over.

Some families have found the crisis to be a good opportunity to become close with their children in new ways. Asking your kids to brainstorm about ways to cut back on family spending makes them feel valued and useful, and helps prepare them to find their own way in less than optimum economic times. Some parents have stopped hiring lawn cutters and housecleaners, choosing instead to pay their kids (far less) for the same services.

How have other parents changed your families’ spending patterns? Have you talked to your kids about the changes?

Photo: New York Times

Kids Collect Art. Don’t Yours?

Madeline Holler — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:40:00 GMT

This Wall Street Journal article about children who collect art gets on my nerves. I’ve got nothing against art, nothing against collecting and nothing against kids. But I hate how a gallery owner gushes about a young girl’s “great eye” after the nine-year-old handed over more than $5,000 for a porcelain basket covered with tiny platinum elephants. Basket? Elephants? Sounds like something four out of five nine-year-old girls might pick out if given such a substantial knick-knack budget. The rest of the girl’s 40-piece collection – which the young collector says focuses on animals, “happy colors” such as pink and yellow, and includes a Warhol panda – is equally as unsurprising if you ignore the cost, value and artist’s signatures.

Parents of these young collectors are nonetheless impressed. One teen art collector’s mother praises her son’s aesthetic. He collects art made of candy. Wow! Kids and candy. Like oil and water. What an old soul this woman is raising! Among his favorites, a Spanish cathedral made from chocolate syrup, a wall-hanging made entirely of candy bars, and pictures of lollipops and candied cherries. Of his candy portrait that is also a puzzle he says: “I love it because it just makes me want candy.” Somebody get this kid to a 7Eleven!

There’s also the 11-year-old who raised his paddle for the winning bid on a Jeff Koons gnome sculpture. More than $350,000.

Don’t get me wrong. Enthusiastic art appreciation is great – you’re never too young to be exposed to good art. But these kids are taken seriously for being attracted to objects and pictures that appeal to just about every kid – a panda! a gnome! a Ritter Sport chocolate bar!

The fact that they are choosing works of art from the likes of Basquiat and Warhol and (seriously?) Rembrandt is hardly the sign of a young genius. (Said Rembrandt purchaser called the high-priced sketch he acquired “awesome.”) The galleries, auction houses and art shows where these parents take their kids to shop don’t exactly display works from the middle school art club. To come away from one of those places with a valuable piece is like shooting fish in a barrel. They can’t miss.

On a side note, I’m putting in for a tooth-fairy transfer One of the young collector’s parents said his kids shop and bid with, among other cash sources, money for leaving baby teeth under their pillow. Our tooth fairy barely leaves enough for a tube of glitter glue.

Strollerderby : allowances

Explaining Financial Troubles to the Kids

Kids Collect Art. Don’t Yours?