I attended a MOPS (Moms of Preschoolers) meeting this week and the topic was understanding your child’s wiring. Are they an extrovert or introvert? Task-oriented or people-orientated? Each child is a combination of those qualities and they’re wired to be a yellow, red, blue, or green.
We identified our child’s wiring through a questionnaire and then were given tools on how to listen to them, say the right things, and cater to their innate needs. (A Grown Up’s Guide to Your Kids’ Wiring, by Kathleen Edelman)
I am a yellow, as is my nine-year-old daughter. My husband and 11-year-old daughter are blues. For the three-year-old twins, the jury is out, but my little girl is looking blue and my boy is looking to be a green. So, our household is a big beautiful rainbow.
Through this exercise, I learned that as a yellow, I know how to talk to my yellow daughter. I can easily relate to her and know what to say to motivate, encourage, and make her feel seen. But I can not use the same words with my blue daughters. A blue’s language and motivating factors are completely different and I can not expect the same things from my blue daughters as I do from my yellow daughter. The same goes for my potentially green son.
It’s a lot of work to understand these personalities and what they need from us as parents. But once we identify and learn, the barriers to communication and understanding are broken down.
Your wiring with money is no different.
We are all wired in a specific way when it comes to money, also called a money personality. Sometimes our money personality comes from experiences we had as children (parents arguing about money = negative; earning money from a lemonade stand = positive) and a lot of it is just based on our personalities, in general.
Last month, I shared allowance strategies to help your child become a financially savvy adult. The overall message was that if you don’t show your children how to earn and responsibly spend money throughout their childhood, how on earth can we expect them to handle money correctly in adulthood? The same goes for understanding your child’s money personality. Because I talk about money all day with my clients, it was much easier for me to identify my kids’ money personalities before their wiring.
Not surprisingly, my yellow and blue daughters are polar opposites when it comes to money. Just like their wiring is a yin and yang.
There are many resources on money personalities, but I am going to share a few examples that Dave Ramsey provides to quickly learn your child’s financial tendencies. Your money personality is determined by the tendencies of how you deal with money. Most of the time, it is an either-or, but your child (and you) can fall on a continuum.
Financial Tendencies in Money Personalities
- Spender or Saver
When your child receives their allowance or money from the tooth fairy, does the cash burn a hole in their pocket? Or does it go safely into the piggy bank?
- Experiences Person or Things Person
Does your child ask for the shiny new object or would they rather have a fun experience?
- Quality Person or Quantity Person
Does your child want every squishmallow ever made? Size, color, it doesn’t matter, just get them all! Or would they rather have a couple of big ones in the perfect animal and color combination to enjoy?
Depending on your child’s age, the next few may be harder to know right now . . .
- Safety Person or Status Person
Is your child already trying to keep up with the Joneses of middle school? Or are they realizing that having money for a rainy day feels better?
- Abundance Person or Scarcity Person
Is your child a risk taker or holding onto their money for dear life?
- Nerd or Free Spirit
Does your child fly by the seat of their pants? Or are they more structured and disciplined?
- Spontaneous Giver or Planned Giver
Does your child have a bleeding heart and want to give money to every person and organization that needs it? Or is your child more constrained and researched with their giving?
If my yellow daughter has $5, she’s spending $7. She loves stuff, can find something she likes at every store, and is a free spirit. She is also a spontaneous giver. Just this morning, she was raiding our pantry for her school’s food drive. I have to make it a point to force her to save some of her money and I probably will be doing so into adulthood as well.
My blue daughter is a saver, researches a good deal when she needs to buy, and operates from a scarcity mentality. I have to remind her that it’s OK to spend her money if she is longing for something.
Where do you fall in these scenarios? What about your spouse or partner? Identifying where you and your children fall is helpful when creating an open environment about money.
Understanding your money personality is important. Once we have that understanding, we can identify our strengths and weaknesses when it comes to money. We can teach our children strategies on how to play to their strengths and combat their weaknesses. And like starting them off on an allowance, these skills will carry them throughout their lives and help them become financially savvy adults.
