Kid Talk
In the New York Times yesterday, there was a piece by Ron Lieber about handling tough questions from kids about money–such as “Daddy, are we rich?”( http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/10/your-money/10money.html) The piece was reasoned and sensible, for the most part, but two suggestions seemed arguable. One was in regard to the question “How much money do you make?”
The article said, “As with any financial question, your first response ought to be, ‘What made you think of that?’ ”
Really? Any financial question? I understand the reason behind this idea, but in general I’d say it’s a good idea to answer kids’ questions with an answer of some kind–not a question that may be a kind of camouflage for intelligence-gathering–even if it’s a little corrective. In this case I would counter-suggest, “Enough for us to have what we need” or “We are OK, but that’s a subject for adults to talk about, not kids.” Then perhaps ask a question back, such as the one Lieber suggests. Or “Did something happen that made you think or worry about that?” But first, I’d say, reaffirm the concept that there are areas of conversation which generally belong to grown-ups, just as there are for children.
The second debatable advice Lieber gives is that to answer kids’ money concerns and questions a parent can always remind them that “they are better off in many ways than much of the world’s population.” Again, really? And in this case that’s not a rhetorical “Really?” I have always been told by psychologists that it’s not a good or helpful idea to tell children, especially young children, that they are better off than others, because it is a way of dismissing rather than addressing their anxieties. Personally, I think it’s a perfectly good strategy when used with restraint. It seems to me that to try to install a conscience–and, more important, to help kids understand that this is a very big world and that wealth is a relative matter, and even that wealth doesn’t by any means always consist of money–can not be a mistake.
Maybe it would help everyone concerned to see the recent documentary film Babies, to understand the complex human ecology of childhood, possessions, and what richness really is.
