Reply Tips for Parents on Tough Money Questions Children Ask

Kids ask not just the darndest or the funniest questions, but the toughest ones like “are we rich or are we poor?”  And then the really hard part, the “why?”

Unless you are Warren Buffet, these are kid questions that require a lot of thought answering, as any wrong explanation to your chosen answers may lead to some not so great consequences, like telling the kindergarten class what you said during show-and-tell.

Tough money questions from kids require some good deal of preparation.  What are they most likely to ask?  What are we doing that makes them asks those things?   And  probably more important than the answer is HOW you will answer them.

As our long-time parenting voice of authority www.parenting.com said, “we’re not talking about simple curiosities, like why a nickel

is bigger than a dime if it’s worth less, which can be answered easily by checking the encyclopedia. We mean the type of questions that call for you to disclose intimate details about your finances or otherwise explain why you live the way you do.”  We agree, check out why.

To be fair, we also want to know how kids’ tough money questions are handled by a Dad.   Question: What will happen if we ran out of money?  Instead of painting nice, reassuring family scenes with his words, On Being Dad used a real-life example to explain to his kid the importance of saving, and hence, not worrying so much if they run out of money.

Our equally tough female friends from Female Network put in some really direct answers for kids who ask “why can our classmates go to Disneyland and we can’t?”  Tough, right?  Leave it to mom power to provide guides on how these types of questions can be answered, without increasing your voice pitch as an effort to contain your stress.

Our favourite personal  finance online source Free Money Finance, who shares his own experiences based from his applied money matter principles, asked his son and daughter some questions regarding money matters, and found them smarter with money subjects than their dad thought them to be, which is a good revelation.  If you have tweens in the family, these would be some of the money question-and-answer stuff you can definitely use in the near future.

Finally, we give you a treat fit for the kids whose tough money questions we do not find childish at all.  Our My Money Blog financial freedom  advisor featured this Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip to show how kids can understand money in their own terms.  You’d be surprised on how their concept of price, quality and choices in relation to money can be so smart.  And so true!

What’s the toughest money question a child asked you?  And what did you say?

Let us know, and let us learn from you too!

By Allan Jay

Allan Jay is FinancesOnline’s resident B2B expert with over a decade of experience in the SaaS space. He has worked with vendors primarily as a consultant in the UX analysis and design stages, lending to his reviews a strong user-centric angle. A management professional by training, he adds the business perspective to software development. He likes validating a product against workflows and business goals, two metrics, he believes, by which software is ultimately measured.