Stressed About Money? The Kids Might Be, Too
Here's how to walk the line between telling them too little and too much
With nothing but dire financial news ruling the airwaves lately, you can be certain children have pricked up their ears. As hard times begin to hit home—and purse strings yank tighter—how much of your worries should you share with the kids? U.S. News asked David Palmiter, a Scranton, Pa., clinical psychologist expert in counseling children and families, for advice on how and when to discuss difficult topics with children—without upending their whole world. Excerpts:
Is there any hiding financial stress from kids?
People have unhealthy ways of coping when they're under stress; smokers tend to smoke more; if they drink alcohol, they tend to drink more. If as a little kid, I'm sensing these kinds of changes, I may be wondering if something is wrong. And if there's no overt discussion about it, I may be assuming it's me that's causing the problem.
Younger kids still think magically, so if a kid hears one given news story about one person losing their house multiple times a day, to a younger kid, that's multiple events. After 9/11, we had kids thinking there were multiple planes crashing into multiple buildings, all over the place. So parents would probably want to provide some clarification.
What's the best way to share money worries with children?
The younger the kid or the more psychologically vulnerable the child, the more likely I am to share only what they need to know. The older they are, the more psychologically solid they are, I'm more inclined to share more with the idea that this is part of helping them to think about stress, to think about difficult times, and to cope well with them. It's good for kids through the course of development to learn gradually how to deal with pain. And we parent-lunatics—and I say lunatics because we love our kids so much that it makes us crazy—sometimes we don't want to see our kids suffer, so we deprive them of valuable opportunities to learn how to cope. Then, when they're on their own, they don't know how to do it. So many college freshmen come in and they don't know how to cope with significant stress. One of our tasks as parents is to gradually, bit by bit, enhance our kids' capacity to deal with these kinds of stressors.
Should parents lie about tough times they're experiencing?
It's very important that we not tell our kids things that we don't believe are true. We do that all the time with excellent intentions, but long run, that approach tends to damage the relationship and my credibility as a parent. So I only want to say things that are true but be selective. I refer to the term "selective truth-telling."
For instance, say a parent has lost his or her job and is going to lose the mortgage if he or she can't make a significant change in three months. That's the kind of detail that I probably wouldn't tell an 8-year-old—that the mortgage is in jeopardy. I would tell them about the job, because they're going to see Dad not coming and going, or someone else might let the kid in on that, or they might overhear something. It's like sex education. In the ideal, you want all the information coming from the parents. But a child is a bridge that's still being formed and cementing. How much weight he or she can handle and support changes from year to year. We don't want to take a big old caravan of heavy trucks across a bridge that's not fully formed if we can avoid it. If there are serious issues that would really stress or frighten a young child, I'm probably going to hold back until the point that they really have to know.
What about a teenager?
I might say to the teen, "This is the deal: I got laid off. I'm not quite sure what's going to happen. I'm a little worried about it, but I'm confident in my abilities and our abilities as a family. I want to be honest with you that I do feel a little worried and sad." It promotes closeness with the teen and says, "You're mature enough to handle this." And it's modeling how to cope with stressful times. I can't tell you the number of times when a kid has had some romantic attachment dump them, and they're really surprised to hear that it's happened to their parents. We're just not used to telling our kids about some of our vulnerabilities and failings. They really benefit from it.
What might signal that a child is worried about the family finances?
Sleep disturbances, appetite disturbances, concentration disturbances, nightmares, avoidance of situations or people are like the psychological equivalents of having a fever. So if the kid is given very stressful information and then starts to develop these symptoms, there's probably a connection.
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children and stress
I was born in 1942 and lost my father in 1948, when I was six. My classmate dissappeared to me from Polio in the September just prior to my father's death on Christmas eve. An Uncle passed away in between, also from lingering injury sustained in WWII. At that time it was the norm not to speak about or mention anything troublesome in the presence of children. Complete silence on forbidden matters was exercised. This went for the dire things in the news like the Cold War, the Atomic bomb and lynchings. Unfortunately, we children like our dog companions could read emotion like a book. Silence not only enhanced anxiety but it lead to a pronounced awareness of everything happening in the world and a enlightened imagination to fill in the blanks. We had, in the 1940's, a sort of baby sitter in the local theatre where we would be treated to endless cartoons, movie serials and Movietone News. Some of the most horrid visions were delivered us in the form of Movietone News clips. I can still see the faces of a crowd of people filmed at a lynching surrounding the poor victum. Death was delivered by the same device in terms of carts of bodies in between cartoons.
The Atom bomb, our drills under desks were a vague and very real danger to us little guys. I, once fatherless, looked after my Mother by scrutizing all streets and alleys in my little town for safe refuge should a blast occur. One of the Movietone features, some time later in the early 1950's showed the destruction of a town built in Nevada. I shook like a leaf when I saw a wooden house reduced to splinters that moved off the movie screen intact and returned moments later in a reverse after shock, still visable as a house but now a disintigrating mass rapidly splintering. So much for being under a desk, I thought. From that point all hope of saving my Mother from what now took shape and was defined in my imagination and fears was gone. I danced home when Stalin died figuring that that danger had passed with him. Such were and still are.... deep in that buried six year old imagination... things that never leave me...
Let me underscore, therefore, what has been so profoundly outlined in the article. I don't know whether talking seriously would alter the outcome, but like my dog mentors of my childhood, I respected and was relieved by the strength, the calmness and the being talked to as an adult that my Grandfather manifested. He was at those times a rock and an anchor. He, we knew, could perish with the rest of us... but we would do so at his side walking bravely in his shadow. His presence was comfort enough. Its too bad that I was unable to articulate and have him address all the terrible things I imagined. I'm sure his answers would have provided needed relief. At the time only my Dog Brownie was savy enough to know how distressed I was.
Lanny R. North
Honolulu Hawaii
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