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

by Ron Lieber

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.

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.

why 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.

Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school: “So did you learn anything today?” But not my mother. “Izzy,” she would say, “did you ask a good question today?” That difference—asking good questions—made me become a scientist.’”

In my years of research on the topic, I’ve determined that there is one answer that works best for any and every money question. The response is itself a question: Why do you ask?

We should certainly do our part at home by making them do all kinds of chores. But they ought to do them for the same reason we do—because the chores need to be done, and not with the expectation of compensation. If they do them poorly, there are plenty of valuable privileges we can take away, aside from withholding money. So allowance ought to stand on its own, not as a wage but as a teaching tool that gets sharper and more potent over a decade or so of annual raises and increasing responsibility. This chapter is the user’s manual for that tool.

Thrift is an odd word, often synonymous with cheap. If it’s ever a compliment, it’s a begrudging one. What’s been lost over the years, however, is the recognition that the root word of thrift is thrive. Our goal as parents isn’t to promote the stingy type of thrift or the resolute version that previous generations of Americans generally turned to only when the economy or war shortages demanded it. 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.

Materialistic people focus more on stuff than they do on people and relationships.

Feeling fortunate is good for kids. A number of scholars who are part of a boom in happiness studies have measured gratitude levels in children and found strong correlations between gratitude and higher grades, levels of life satisfaction, and social integration. There’s also a link between gratitude and lower levels of envy and depression.

So if we want our children to be more sensitive to the fact that not everyone has what they have, it helps to seek out cross-class friendships, both for our kids and for ourselves. Any effort to forge those relationships, however, creates uncomfortable questions. Why try at all? The point can’t be simply to teach children what it would be like if their own family had less money. No family wants to be the source of a child’s edification. Nor should families with less be objects of pity.

He encourages parents to consider four things. First, who are the leaders? If they are real grown-ups with expertise in the region, then there might be some educational value to the program. Second, does the work to be done leverage the skills of the participants? And if they don’t have any skills, how exactly will they be helping? Third, he suggests taking a careful look at how the program is being sold, and by whom. Is it a for-profit operation marketing the beauty of the region or an organization that focuses mostly on the needs of a community and how to help? Finally, he would never send a child on a trip like this with a friend, since preformed cliques can prevent kids from learning from one another.

However much adults may enjoy having hotel attendants bring them strawberries and Evian spray poolside for a week or two each year, kids remember everyday experiences just as well, or even better.

As always, we’re in the adult-making business here. The goal is not to make our children feel bad about whatever advantages they have or to shun those advantages as they grow older. Nor should parents feel as if they have to apologize to their kids or anyone else for their own good fortune. Having more than enough money is a great thing. What we don’t want, however, are children who have no curiosity about people who are different from them and no understanding of what it might be like to have less. We’re trying to imprint sensitivity and a lack of presumption that everyone is alike in their resources and the choices available to them.

One of the most profound challenges of having kids is that raising them isn’t simply about shaping their financial values and decision-making skills. Teaching them means questioning our own priorities as well, which is a healthy thing to do in any event. So defining enough for us grown-ups has to happen as early as possible in the parenting process.