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

Female Med Students Underestimate Themselves

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:30:00 GMT

It’s clear that women have shattered the glass ceiling of achievement within the medical profession. They just don’t feel that way.

According to a new study, female medical students feel more anxious and less confident about their knowledge and abilities. Males, on the other hand, tend to overestimate their competence, even though women consistently do as well or better than their male counterparts in medical school. And, at the end of medical school, males tended to unhesitatingly report that they felt like doctors, while women tended to weigh their medical knowledge before answering the question.

According to the study’s authors, more than half of medical students are female, but educators may not be taking into account different learning needs between the genders, overlooking, for instance, the issue of self-confidence.

Although I'm glad that this question is being raised, what bothers me about this and similar gender studies is the implication that women’s natural tendencies are wrong. Personally, I would rather have a female doctor who was just as competent but a bit less cocksure than a male doctor who believed himself more competent than he actually was. Then again, if women are less confident and more anxious because they have been conditioned to feel that way, parents and educators have a whole lot of work to do well before youth even get to medical school.

Photo: Student BMJ

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Explaining Financial Troubles to the Kids

Female Med Students Underestimate Themselves