As a parent of a teenager do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by the pressure to buy your teen the latest trendy item of clothing or gizmo? Do you notice that sometimes you find yourself giving in and later wish that you hadn’t? Have you come to the conclusion that you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t? If this sounds, looks or feels like you, don’t despair, help is on the way. There is a way to handle money better in your parent teenager relationship.
Let’s begin with the basics. Be okay with saying “no” when your kid asks you for something. However this does not give you permission to say “no” to anything and everything in your parent teenager relationship.
Take note that from now on, when your darling teen comes at you with a demand that you buy them something, stay positive and optimistic. At the same time, you are not going to be gullible to just hand over the money. By having an overall positive outlook you convey to your teenager that you believe that they are capable of making good choices.
Bear in mind that a common view of many teens is the belief that their parents often say “no” to their ideas. In your parent teenager relationship, you want to avoid having your teen think that your nickname is “no”.
To cut to the chase, what do you say when your teenager asks you to buy something for them outside of your normal daily or weekly budget? Let me share with you my response over more than ten years with our four teenagers. I would typically say: “where is the money coming from to pay for it?”
Over the time span of more than a decade, I have supported our teens purchase of many items including trips and going to concerts and more. The price values have ranged from thousands of dollars to a few dollars. Since early in the piece they cottoned on to the idea that whatever they wanted, that was outside our normal family spending, they had to pay for it, it caused them to ask themselves a very useful question. That question was “do I really need/want it?”
Many a time they came to conclude: “it would be nice to have, but I don’t really want it”. Through this process our teenagers expereinced the openess and support of their parents who were ready to help them make it happen.
Just to set the record straight. My wife are not modern day versions of scrooge. We buy our kids lots of stuff for their birthdays, for special events and for not so special events.
In conclusion, as parents, we are of the view that our approach in our parent teenager relationships when it comes to using money has yielded certain benefits. Firstly. We have encouraged our kids to do a cost-benefit analysis before deciding to buy something. This has made them more savvy as consumers. Secondly. We have maintained a spirit of openess and positivity to our teenagers ideas’. Thirdly, in educating them around money we have taught them to use money wisely and to always value what they have.
How is your relationship with your teenager tracking these days? Do you feel weighed down orfrustrated? Do you feel like whatever you say or do it makes little or no difference? If so, before you do anything else, graba hold of parent teenager expert, Paul Saver’s 7 FREE videos that are formulated to revolutionize parent teenager relationship . Just click on the link.
