Many (if not most people) muddle along in a complex and emotionally charged relationship with money.  The truth for many otherwise confident and competent adults is that money frightens us.  Whether this is true for you or not, there’s a good chance that money isn’t a topic you discuss freely with your children.  For the most part, we don’t discuss our income, we keep our worries to ourselves, and we don’t share what we do know about how money works.  Here are some questions that can help you and your children toward a frank discussion about financial matters:

1. How do you feel about money?
2. How important is money?
3. What money or other resources do you need to achieve your personal, family, or cultural community goals?
4. Are you taking the steps necessary now to earn and save money so that you can achieve your goals later?  What kinds of activities are you doing?
5. Do you think having a budget is a good idea?  Why or why not?
6. What do you currently know about banking?  What would you like to learn?
7. Do you try to save some of your money?  Why or why not?
8. What are your savings goals? If you don’t have any just yet, what might some of these future goals be?
9. Is it important to do things with your money that help other people (such as give to charity or support causes such as human rights)?  Why or why not?
10. How have you seen adults model giving money to charity?  What have you learned?
11. Do you think of yourself as a smart consumer most of the time?  Why or why not?
12. How often do you buy something impulsively?
13. Do you think credit cards are a good idea?  Why or why not?
14. Do you think going into debt is a problem for our society?  Why or why not?
15. When you think about earning money now or in the future, do you focus more on how much you want to earn or how you want to earn it?  Why is this so?

Adapted from An Asset Builder's Guide to Youth and Money, copyright 1999 by Search Institute www.search-institute.org