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The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money QUOTES

The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money QUOTES

1 " They just want to know what we stand for; our spending choices is one way that we articulate this. "

― , The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

2 " Spoiled children tend to have four primary things in common, though they don’t all have to be present at once: They have few chores or other responsibilities, there aren’t many rules that govern their behavior or schedules, parents and others lavish them with time and assistance, and they have a lot of material possessions. "

― , The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

3 " But Matthiesen hit on the concept of return on investment, though she didn’t call it that. Instead, she asked her kids to estimate the hours of fun per dollar that any particular Want of theirs might provide. "

― , The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

4 " every conversation about money is also about values. Allowance is also about patience. Giving is about generosity. Work is about perseverance. Negotiating their wants and needs and the difference between the two has a lot to do with thrift and prudence. "

― , The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

5 " I call it Dewey’s rule, and it stands for the idea that parents should try to arrange things so that, on average, their children end up in the 30th percentile of stuff. "

― , The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

6 " One way to make sure children know that questions are welcome is to praise their asking them so routinely that posing good ones becomes a habit. "

― , The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

7 " Leonard grew up to be an activist, traveling the globe for Greenpeace. Along the way, she made a short film about pollution and garbage called The Story of Stuff in hopes of teaching people about the consequences of buying and discarding more things than we truly need. It struck a nerve, a big one, and the video has now been viewed online at least 25 million times. The film became a book and evolved into a nonprofit organization. Stephen Colbert had her on his show and referred to her film as a “craze.” Children eventually joined "

― , The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

8 " Each week, starting when she was about 7 years old, Katie Belpedio Schreiber, her mother, and her younger brother would sit down at the kitchen table with the Columbus Dispatch in Ohio, and clip. The coupons went in an accordion file that the trio would take to the local Kroger or Big Bear, depending on which had the best in-store deals that week. The children waited by the register for the receipt to announce the total savings, and their mother would hand it over on the spot, in cash. "

― , The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

9 " Another tactic that encourages thrift, cuts down on endless nagging, and gives kids some sense of autonomy is the use of prepaid debit cards. These "

― , The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

10 " there’s no shame in having more or having less, as long as you’re grateful for what you have, share it generously with others, and spend it wisely on the things that make you happiest. It’s true for our kids, but it’s true for us, too. "

― , The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

11 " But do toddlers simply learn this behavior along the way and mimic it? When I called up one of the study’s coauthors, Kiley Hamlin, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia, she pointed out a couple of things. Yes, toddlers see plenty of people being nice to them, but if they have older siblings, they may see plenty of the opposite behavior as well. “What tells me that the generosity isn’t basic mimicry is how early they start giving stuff to people,” she said. “Most 12-month-olds will sit with you and insist that you take their gross Cheerios, over and over. And insist that you eat them, and like them. It’s not just that they want to give them to you; they want to watch and make sure you enjoy it.” She believes simple evolution is the explanation here: We live in groups for protection and companionship, and doing so requires cooperation and generosity. The "

― , The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

12 " Money is central, but it is also a teaching tool that uses the value of a dollar to instill in our children the values we want them to embrace. These traits—curiosity, patience, thrift, modesty, generosity, perseverance, and perspective "

― , The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

13 " So they settled on a plan, a stretch target for each of their kids: Every one of them would pay for the first semester of college tuition themselves. To do this, they would need as much as $15,000 each. "

― , The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

14 " And Tim Kasser, one of the leading experts on materialism among the nation’s academic psychologists, reminds his readers how easy it is to forget that much of the world has never had a hot shower. "

― , The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

15 " They have few chores or other responsibilities, there aren’t many rules that govern their behavior or schedules, parents and others lavish them with time and assistance, and they have a lot of material possessions. A "

― , The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

16 " So to create what he hoped would be an exciting alternative to consumption, he started a bank at his house (and on a Google spreadsheet) that pays about 20 percent in annual interest. That’s "

― , The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

17 " Instead, we’re aiming to do three things: set some spending guidelines to lean on; model a few sensible tactics for our children; and adopt family rituals that make spending fun—but only on things that have real value and meaning. "

― , The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

18 " Figuring out how much to pay for a college education is one of the biggest financial decisions people make in their lifetime, and parents often leave the final call to a 17-year-old who has never purchased anything more expensive than a bicycle. "

― , The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

19 " People are not dispassionate about money, and they’re certainly not calm and rational about their kids. "

― , The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

20 " Parents of middle- and working-class kids have many of the same worries about materialism and entitlement, given that all kids are exposed to the same acquisitive culture. "

― , The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money