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In this issue: Diving deeper into digital literacy, finding the process that works for your family and learning the hardest lesson.

"Helping parents raise money-smart kids."

​​3 Ideas to Share & Save​
​(Click the link above 👆 to read this week's edition on the web.)

Hello, friends,

Welcome to this week's "​​​3 Ideas to Share & Save"!

I hope you're enjoying our miniseries featuring literacies that complement the financial variety we often discuss:

• Learning media literacy helps kids understand how easily they're being manipulated.
• Learning digital literacy shields children from cyberbullying, online scams and even physical dangers.

In this issue, I'll explain how the latter protects kids' privacy in a world hell-bent on wresting it from them.

— 1 —

The Digital Literacy Experience: For visual learners, here is my full conversation with Diana Graber, the digital literacy advocate we met last week.

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Three areas of our conversation stood out, and the links below take you directly to these topics:

1️⃣ Last week, Diana explained how our kids can avoid online scams. This week, she warns us about the potential dangers of influencers, who wield outsized control of our children's minds and whose social media scams can wreak havoc on our kids' financial lives.

2️⃣ Diana opens my eyes to the worrisome issue of sextortion. While this is an uncomfortable subject to discuss with children, it is happening. And even though it's not an epidemic and I'm not an alarmist, I thought you, like me, would appreciate knowing what to do about it.

3️⃣ We'll close out this 3-for-1 section of ideas with Diana's advice about an essential piece of the online safety puzzle: strong passwords!

If you want to dive deeper into digital literacy, visit Cyberwise and Cyber Civics, the websites Diana founded for parents and teachers, respectively.

— 2 —

On Goals: For several years, our family wrote our goals on small sheets of paper and dropped them in a jar. We'd open that jar a year later. While seeing which goals we'd achieved was fun, seeing those we hadn't was disheartening.

Despite our family's good intentions, realizing goals isn't a set-and-forget process. As researcher Heidi Grant Halvorson reminds us in her book Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals:

Fortunately, an allowance program sets you up for success. During your weekly distribution, you can point to your child's Save jar. (You know, the one on which he's pasted that video game he wants.) As you dole out his dollars, try asking him:

• How much longer until you reach your goal? 🗓️
• Would you like to put more money in the Save jar this week to reach your goal faster? 💲
• Are you still excited about your goal? 🤩 (It's okay to change — or even abandon — a goal that's no longer of interest.)

Goals can be powerful tools. However, they don't work for everyone.

(I'm reminded of podcast guest Brad Klontz's recommendation to take general advice with a grain of salt.)

Ryan Holiday, author of many books, including one of my favorites, The Daily Stoic, recently remarked:

The art in The Art of Allowance is finding the process that works for your family and, most importantly, for each individual child. These processes help kids learn, through experience, how using money makes them feel and help immerse them in the craft of using money as a tool to build fulfilling lives.

— 3 —

Weekly Wisdom:

Discovering what is enough might be the hardest lesson to learn because it can't be taught.

Thank you for being a loyal reader. I appreciate your time, and I hope you find a nugget or two from this newsletter useful enough to share and save.

As always, enjoy the journey!

John,
Chief Mammal

P.S. Please consult with a financial or investment professional before making any decisions that might affect your financial well-being.

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