Hi there, it's Finley 👋🏼 and Happy Friday.

Hope your summer is going well.

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Get comfortable and expect failure

There is something I've noticed in my kids the last few years as the summer drags on. They become more and more risky with their choices.

Some of it comes down to the lack of routine from summer days.

I think part of it is the bigger and better culture of social media.

Of course it could be that teenage brains develop in ways conducive to more risk.

As parents, we can live with a persistent fear about the choices are kids are going to make.

But, we all know that mistakes and failures are some of our best teachers.

If you and I were to sit down for coffee and I asked about some of your biggest failures, I guarantee you'd follow it with a significant lesson you learned.

In every family, both parents and kids need to prepare for failure. We need to prepare our kids for mistakes and we need to prepare ourselves for our response.

Teaching your kids that failure is a part of life is so valuable.

Having the self awareness as a parent to know how you are going to handle your kids failure is just as important.

I personally struggle with failure. I have my whole life. It has been difficult as a father too.

But we ALL make mistakes. It is a part of life.

Once, on a trip with my wife I lost almost $500 with one dumb choice. We sat in a park eating lunch and I set my wallet down next to me, instead of in my pocket.

We got up and left and when we came back the wallet was gone.

Some mistakes are errors of judgement. Others come from poor influences. Some mistakes are passed from one generation to another.

It's the cost or ramifications of mistakes that you should teach your kids.

Affirm to them that mistakes will happen. But, the degree of consequences can increase dramatically, especially as they get older.

We used kid sized money to help illustrate this idea.

To an 8 year old, $10 is a good amount, $100 can buy almost anything and $1000 is more than the imagination can handle.

In our house, we phrased it like this:

$10 mistakes:
You'll make a bunch. It's not fun but you'll learn a lot.

$100 mistakes:
It's inevitable to make some. It's going to sting bad but it's not forever or final.

$1000 mistakes:
These must be avoided. They can change the course of your life.

The greater the $-$$$ the higher the personal cost of the mistake

Now, every family will have their own expectations, but failure should be an educator not a measuring stick for our kids.

Creating a family that openly talks about $10 mistakes, loves through $100 mistakes and builds in safety measures to avoid $1000 mistakes will be well prepared.

Now the hard part. Sharing your mistakes and failures with your kids.

When appropriate (age and situation) your kids need to hear from you.

Not the lessons you learned, but simply that you made mistakes too.

Be prepared. Get comfortable and expect failure.

Big Idea: A healthy family prepares for and parents through failure with empathy and steady engagement.

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Since we're sort of talking about money

I've been a believer in the principles that Dave Ramsey teaches for a long time. Like anyone, I don't agree with everything, but the big stuff is spot on.

His daughter, Rachel, has followed in his footsteps, which alone is pretty impressive.

She has a similar charisma as her father and is building on their brand, teaching families about the principles of money.

Here's what she shared about kids and money recently.

"Raising kids who aren’t spoiled is the goal for most of us parents!

Listen, spoiled means goes bad.

So in order to not allow your kids to “go bad” with money, start teaching them.

Start with paying them for a few chores so they learn that money comes from work.

Then teach them to give, save and spend that money in that order.

Here’s to raising grateful kids!!"

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That's all for today's writing of Parenting: what we've learned (so far)

If any of this was engaging or you had a small take away,
it always helps when parents share with others.

​Here is a link to this page on the web you could copy & share​

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