Well, hello, hello, hello, and it's a beautiful day to bust some cognitive distortions. Hey everybody, nice to have you back. Thank you so much for joining me today. My name is Suzanne M. Swain, EDS, LMSW. I am a kid therapist and educational specialist and master teacher. So what's been going on? How y'all been? So I wanted to give a shout out to Bend, Oregon. Hey y'all, I got this new analytics app that's showing me like where people are downloading from. New York, what up, New York, forget about it. Hello, hello, hello. And Colorado, y'all have been doing pretty well out there as well. So Bend, Oregon, you know, reach out. How's it going? You guys are far and away the top listeners. So I just was hoping that we could, you know, have a conversation. I want to get to know y'all. And every single one of you also please feel free to go to the website MSMaryPoppins.com, MsMaryPoppins.com, and that is our podcast website. You can learn all about Steve and Ralphie who are doing fine. Steve is currently in his dog bed chewing on himself and I think he may have a flea or something going on today. I'm not sure. But today's topic is we are going to talk about divergency and money. Yikes. And if that just made you have a little bit of anxiety park up right there, which it did in me, you may be neurodivergent. So neurodivergent folks, we tend to either be really, really good with money or we may be really bad with money. And a lot of us are in the latter category, unfortunately. I don't put a lot of value in money. I see there's a kind of a triad of money, power and ego that seemed to be the triad of evil in my world. It just seems like that seems to be a motivation for so many things in this world that I always saw money as something that was more of a weapon and not something that is going to benefit people. Generosity is more what I care about because it's just material possessions and things and stuff. But money provides experiences and allows you the ability to live a more comfortable life. So now that I'm in my upper 40s, I need to start focusing on that kind of stuff too. I've been talking with my kiddos a lot about finance and money because they've had a lot of questions. So I thought today we could talk for just a little bit about some ways that you can support your neurodivergent kiddo and help them to have a better understanding of how money works, but to also have a healthy understanding of the meaning of money. I had a kid last week and she was in my room and going around trying to take things. She was like, oh, can I have this? And well, I don't have anything in my room, so I want this and you have all this stuff and you should give it to me. And so that sense of entitlement is something where they don't really understand the value of money. So I was talking to her about that. I was like, well, you know, this costs X amount of money and it took me this long to save up enough to buy it. And so I tried to put that into place. So that way she understood that things have a material cost and work is the trade off for that cost. So you can't just go in and just take a pair of sneakers. It's like stealing. So it was a little presumptuous of her to assume that I would just give her everything. So what we want to do is we don't want to crush their spirit when it comes to money or to make them afraid of it. So what can we do to try to make y'all feel a little bit better about money? So kiddos, money is not a scary thing, but it's also something that isn't given to you freely like, you know, sunshine and, you know, the rain falling down. It's something that you have to put some effort in. So how do you make money if you're a kid? Well, I definitely don't recommend selling blowpops because we learned about how that could be a real debacle. But what I do recommend is Suzie Orman had a really awesome YouTube video from back in the day when she was on the Oprah Winfrey show and she talked to parents and kids about money. So I suggest you go on YouTube and check it out. In any case, what she did is she said to the kids, you know, I believe in choice, neurodivergent folks or let's just start calling people divergent, divergent folks, adult or kid, they're very, very big on choice because it lets them take control of their lives. And in a place where you feel like maybe you're not the norm, which, you know, is a good thing, sometimes we get a little down on ourselves about that. So the more choices that we can make to self-define ourselves. So when you make a choice, kids, you are defining who you are as a person and making yourself unique. So places like a coffee shop, you know, you have to make 16 choices to order your coffee, but then that's your signature thing. Like I have my signature drink at the DD that is mine and mine alone. And that's cool because that makes me feel comfy and safe and happy, right? So the more choices you get to make, the better. So what she said is that you need to sit down with your family and kiddos say, okay, you know, I'd like to make some money because I'm saving up for what? So short-term goals and long-term goals. So maybe pick something that you'd like to have in the short term that could be maybe helping to pay for dance lessons. It could be a new basketball. It could be a new pair of sneakers. It could be, well, depending on the sneakers and course, it could be, you know, art supplies, something that isn't terribly expensive. So kiddos try to think of something that maybe if you did a couple of weeks worth of work you could get. Something not terribly expensive, maybe even something like a new blanket for your bed to make it look a little newer. And we talked also this week about becoming a tween. So you're growing up now and to taking control of who you are as a tween is really important. And to say that you're not a little kid anymore. So we had, we made little room signs with our names and like new colors and trying something new. And so my kids are rearranging their rooms and trying to update to be a little bit more grown up. So first make the choice on the short term of something you might like to get. Then on the long term, think of something that may take somewhere around most of the school year to make or get, okay, to save up for. That could be something like, you know, a PS5. It could be something, you know, a big ticket type of item. And remember that, you know, Santa doesn't have unlimited funds either. So you know, these kinds of things are expensive, but it's going to help you to understand that it's worth it to work for something because then when you have it, you appreciate it so much more. Trust me, it's really true. So all we got to do is once you've established the thing that you want, your motivation. So get your motivation first. So kids think about something short term and something long term. And if you want midterm, that's fine too. You know, if you have a few things, that's fine. Make a list and you can put it on, you know, up in your room or on the fridge. Then you and your family have a discussion about different tasks that can be done around that. I'm not going to say chores because it's not really a chore. It's just house maintenance. So it's not drudgery. It's not awful. It's just something that you have to do because you take care of the house and you live there too and you live there rent free. So pitch in, earn your keep as they used to say. I always felt like I had to earn my keep a little bit because, hey, you know, I did realize I was living somewhere for free. So even if you're eight years old, even if you're 13, even if you're 15, even if you're 17, take some initiative. You know, you live there too. So taking out the trash is not a big deal just to do because it's a good thing to do. So there's that. Okay. But make a list of maybe 15 to 20 different chores that you can do around the house and then arrange them in order from littles to bigs. So littles could be something like wiping down the sink and putting the dishes in the dishwasher. Okay. Now, bigs could be something like cleaning all the baseboards in the house or maybe mowing the lawn or possibly, you know, fixing the family computer, you know, something that can take quite a bit of time. So these are all activities that are house maintenance activities. Then you guys as a family assign a price to each of these activities from the little quick things that take five, 10 minutes all the way up to things that may take a few hours and assign a price to it. And that's what she was saying is that, you know, more valuable things that take more effort are worth more. So maybe mowing the lawn counts as 20 bucks. Maybe, you know, just cleaning out the sink and putting dishes in the dishwasher is 50 cents. Okay. So then as a kiddo, you're going to keep a log of what it is that you're doing and how the money is being earned. So I did X-Tour on this date. You can make a little chart on the computer for this. I'll try to make one and post it on my website. So maybe you can use that. But you post in there, you know, the date, what you did and how you finished it. And then that at the end over there, you write down the price. So that way you can start calculating how much money you're earning. So then you stop when you've been able to buy that short-term item. Now the best thing to do in my opinion also is to say, okay, let's learn to divide up our money. So now we see we have a short-term goal, mid-term goal, and I need 20 bucks to go on this field trip, et cetera, et cetera. Kids can learn to pay for field trips if there's a fee. I think that that's important. They need to earn it a little bit. Not everything comes free, of course. And unfortunately, the world is a harsh place, y'all. And you know, we just got to accept it for what it is. So anyway, so you divide up your money and say, I'm going to put 10% to this, 20% for that. Look at all these math skills we're learning. Then that way they can see when once they've reached the goal of, you know, having enough money to buy that blanket, they can go ahead and purchase it as they like. So this is a continual thing. It doesn't have a finite end, but you will see that you can change out your short-term with something new once that goal has been achieved. So it's teaching some really wonderful skills. Now let's talk about this, too. They have kid debit cards now, and these are really cool. So families can get these for their kids, and they can learn to control their own money on the internet. But the trick is, is that you got to do this together. This is not something that you can just assume that people just understand money, or like kids just get it because they don't. They have no idea. You know, if you've ever had a kid, just demand that they need something that's like $400 and think it's no big deal, then hint, hint, y'all. So any case, so look into some of these. They're all different ones out there. I'm not going to promote a certain one because I haven't personally used them because I don't have kids of my own. But take a look on the internet, look around for child-friendly debit cards, and a lot of them have software that can help kids to budget and things like that as well. So try to look at some of those and look at the reviews, of course, but maybe look at getting a debit card because the world is about debit cards. And just for kicks, learn how to write a check. That's kind of neat. You do have to write them from time to time, and they're about to be obsolete, but just for sake of looking at like a phone book also, just for something to do, perhaps writing a check is a good thing. So Suzy Orman suggested that we make this sort of shopping list of various activities for house maintenance that need to be done that are according to a price. So everything has a value. And then you're able to earn money from that point forward. So that way as a neurodivergent, you start to associate those values a little bit easier and you start to formulate your own sense of goals. So later on, when you get a bit older, you can start learning to budget in a more effective means. So we can all get better about money. You know, I am guilty as charged of being one of these, you know, scrapping through life kind of people, but we have to take care of ourselves and Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you know, eat, sleep, food, but we need to be able to afford to live in this world. And I know that things are really unaffordable right now. So kids need to understand also that we're in a tough economic situation right now where costs are going up. People are living paycheck to paycheck. And so how can you as a kid help out your family to make things just a little bit easier on them because they're working really hard to, you know, make a buck these days. Money doesn't go as far as it used to. So also I would like to recommend that the first dollar that you make as a kiddo, I suggest you go to Dollar Tree or some dollar bush and go pick up a frame and hang it up in your room and put the date and what you did to earn that dollar and just save it kind of like a business does, right? And then that way you can be proud of that. Let's have a healthy relationship with money. It's going to be okay. We need more than just $3 in our wallet and a, you know, kiss to the sky. So I hope this helps you out a little bit and take upon yourself to make some goals, see what's going on, check out that YouTube video and see what you think about it. And I wish you all a wonderful and pleasant day and a happy fall. It's beautiful outside. Get out there and enjoy your time. And as always, stay clever little foxes. Great to talk to you. Come visit us at MsMerryPoppins.com. Please be sure to share and subscribe to our podcast, please. I would love to hear from you. Email me susanswain at gmail.com. Let me know what you think of the show. And if you have any questions, we'd be happy to answer it or any show ideas. We're looking forward to it. Our next show is going to be all about how neurodivergency works and how to be a bit more clever little foxes. So stay clever little foxes. Have a great day everybody. Take it easy.
