As I sit here writing this, my youngest son is out pounding the pavement. Money motivates him. Not in an unhealthy, consuming kind of way. But in an I-can’t-turn-down-this-opportunity kind of way. And I’m okay with that as long as his ethics and priorities are in the right place. And they are. This is not the first time this opportunity has presented itself. There was a flyer on top of his newspaper stack last week (he has a once-a-week paper…
All parents want their children to succeed in school. And since Kindergarten is a child’s first exposure to “formal” schooling, preparing them for success is an important first step on the academic ladder. But “preparing” our kids for academic success does not mean completing reams of worksheets and stacks of flashcards. It’s actually a lot easier than that. It simply requires looking for opportunities to seamlessly tie “lessons” into daily life. And the good news is, because these lessons are…
Nathan came down beaming into my office yesterday. He had been doing research for a project which requires him to think about his career goals. Nathan is lucky because he knows exactly what he wants to do when he “grows up”. “I can make $61,000 starting off as a Foreign Service Officer,” he said. “And in 15 years, it will have raised to over $95,000!” These numbers were different than the numbers he had shared with me the day before…
Patterns are very useful tools. No, I’m not talking about the paisley patterns covering your socks. I’m talking about routine occurrences that, if we’re paying attention, can help us make positive changes in our lives. Take, for example, the useful discovery that every time you ate nuts, a rash would appear on your neck. It may have taken several months to figure it out, but, with this information, avoiding nuts has had an immediate impact on the quality of your…
The best way to teach kids financial literacy is in the context of their everyday lives. Here’s this month’s teachable money moment: Knowing and understanding money vocabulary is an important step towards financial literacy. “We’re going to cut back on our expenses and cancel the magazine subscriptions we don’t use.” “How much profit did you make on your lemonade stand?” ” No, we can’t buy that this week because it’s not in our budget.” And here’s an old teacher trick…