Excerpted from Beyond the Piggy Bank, a 15-Day Challenge

One of the goals for this Challenge is to develop healthy attitudes about money in our children. Since YOU have the greatest impact on what your kids learn about money, it’s important to take a little time to reflect honestly on the money messages you are sending them.

Ask yourself the following questions. To help clarify your thoughts, you may want to write your responses down on paper.

~What is my attitude towards money?
~Is money a good thing, a bad thing, am I indifferent about money, does money annoy me, is more money better, do I complain about money a lot…
~Why do I feel this way about money?
~What attitude about money are my kids observing in me?
~Which money personality reflects me the most?

–Worrier: I’m always fretting about money
–Carefree Spender: I love spending money. I’ll deal with the consequences later…maybe.
–Penny Pincher/Hoarder: I’m not worried about money, I just don’t like spending any.
–Giver: I’m always buying stuff for my friends and giving them money. I’ll worry about myself later.
–Saver: Yippee! I get to balance my checkbook and maybe put some more into my Roth IRA.
–Avoider: Honestly, do I really have to think about managing my money?

~What are the pluses about my money personality? What are the minuses? How can I improve the minuses?
~How do my kids see me manage money? Am I happy with that? If not, how can I change?
~How would I like my kids to manage money when they are older?
~What money attitude would I like my kids to have as adults?

Once you reflect on and understand more about your own personal feelings towards money, you are in a better position to help your kids develop healthy money attitudes.