#238 – Childhood Financial Literacy with Anthony Delauney

Anna Sergunina: 00:00:00

Welcome to the Money boss parent podcast where we empower parents to confidently manage their finances. I am Anna Sergunina, your host and today I have a special guest and Anthony Delauney. Anthony is a seasoned financial advisor and the founder of Owning the Dash LLC, an organization dedicated to promoting childhood, financial literacy and family financial freedom. He has authored award winning children's picture books that teach essential money lessons, as well as financial self help books for couples at different stages of their financial journey. In today's episode, we'll dive in into the best ways to start talking to your children about money. practical tips for making financial education fun and engaging. And parents listen up common mistakes to avoid. Stay tuned for insightful conversation that will help you lay a strong foundation to raise money smart kids. Without further ado, let's tune in. Hello, money boss, parents. Welcome back. I'm Anna saguna. And excited for this conversation today. Because we get to talk not only about finances, but finances for kids. And you as you have been listening to this podcast for quite some time, you know that that's actually a topic that I love to explore. And as my son gets older, it becomes more real to me. And today, my guest is Anthony, who has spent quite a bit of his career dedicating to writing books in teaching parents on how to bring this topic and these conversations into their everyday life. So without further ado, let's just get started. Anthony, welcome to the show.

Anna Sergunina: 00:01:49

Anthony C Delauney: Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here.

Anna Sergunina: 00:01:51

I am excited. Okay, so just to preface this, I have a five year old son named Liam, and we kind of like I feel like the space sort of hit and I I've been researching. I've been thinking I've been reading a lot about this topic. And and in both Anthony and I are financial planners, so financial planner to financial planning. It's almost like once I had him, it was like, I'm ready to talk to you about finances like right then and there. But I had to wait, right? It's

Anna Sergunina: 00:02:21

Anthony C Delauney: it's hard. But yes,

Anna Sergunina: 00:02:23

we need a time. But it's like, I feel like it just sort of hit me recently, like, oh my gosh, he's asking all these questions and wanting to do things. And he says, recently, he said, Well, how can I make more money anyway, so it's just like, all of a sudden, it's really real. So I'm excited for our conversation, because I know I'm not the only one out there. And this is a very much need a topic and skills that we can instill in this next generation. So welcome. Again, I'd love for you to start maybe just sharing with our audience. Like why do you want to talk about this? How you like all the good stuff a little bit about yourself?

Anna Sergunina: 00:03:03

Anthony C Delauney: Absolutely. So as you mentioned, also in the financial planning world, and I've been in it for about two decades. And in that time, I came into financial planning right out of college, and went through those steps that a lot of parents have gone through, in other words, got married, and purchased a first home had had a child and had another child. Now I have a 12 year old and a 14 year old, which you mentioned five, and I'm already going on miss those days. Right. But yes, absolutely. But one thing I noticed very early in the career is that I just, I loved helping families. And it's hard enough to plan for your financial life. But once you start incorporating a partner or a spouse and children into the mix, all of a sudden it gets it gets a lot more complicated and a lot more interesting. And one question that always keeps coming up is when do I start? And how do I start talking to kids about these money lessons. And one thing that I noticed over the years, especially in the past decade, as technology has really picked up is that a lot of parents, we definitely want to introduce these concepts because as soon as they start asking, just showing an interest, like oh, we've got to seize the opportunity. But the other important lesson that I realized is that a lot of times we want to start kind of with the more complex topics. In other words, a lot of parents want to talk to their kids immediately about trading and investing and things like that, and not focus on the more fundamental lessons that if we kind of skip those basic steps it gets it can be more harm than good sometimes. So I think one of the biggest lessons I learned when it came to talking to kids about money in general is recognizing the relationship between emotion and money. And the fact that if you don't have a good grasp of your emotions, then going discussing more complex money topics can be very difficult to do. So I wanted to try to figure out as I kind of, as I talked to parents about those, those really young years when they're when they're in elementary school to five year olds, and so forth, what what are the key topics that are best to introduce at that age, because we know, like when something seemed just kind of natural, we want to teach our children how to brush their teeth, we want to teach our children how to close themselves and to white brush their hair, whatever it might be things that if they kind of ingrained those patterns in very at a very early age, it just seems natural later in life. And the kind of question becomes, well, what are the financial lessons that we can start teaching at that early age that by the time they do have to make more important decisions, where they actually maybe earn their own money? Or have an allowance or have the ability to go to a store on their own? They're prepared to in those positions. So that was the big focus when introducing these books.

Anna Sergunina: 00:06:06

Yeah, yeah. I love that. Because in you get, you got to probably do this, while your kids were sort of in the midst of it too, right? Going through those phases and figuring it out. Because I just recently, like, I don't know how long a couple weeks ago, I think, or so we're driving in a car and, and my son goes, Mom, how much money do you have? And I was like, I had just think for a second like, what is he asking me how much money I have in the bank? And I was like, you asking me how much money I have in the bank? I it just like it was such a it's just random question. He doesn't know what that means. Right? How much the bank but in his mind, he says no, in your in your purse, right? He was like how much money money to him is the actual, you know, paper dollars and coins. And I said, Why don't you want to know how much I have in my in my purse? Well, and so he just started talking about something that he was saving money for. But it threw me off, right, like unexpected question like that. So I am excited. It's not a problem. Like one of the beliefs I have. And I've seen, you know, clients kind of, you know, families handle these kinds of questions differently. And they're all just depends on what your values and family philosophy is of raising quick buck kids. Um, I mean, I believe in transparency of things, obviously, you can't tell a five year old what you have in the bank and what it actually means, right? So it's like, what can you understand right now, right? Now you can understand I have $5 or $10? In my wallet, right? And what can that buy? But I yeah, I can't stress enough. Like, I want to have the tools in my pocket and all of the listeners to, to be able to handle these kinds of circumstances. So you talked about when, like, so when my question for you is like, when is the good time to start talking about these concepts.

Anna Sergunina: 00:07:58

Anthony C Delauney: So to that point, one thing that for a lot of parents, this generation, we didn't grow up with parents that talked about money. Now it's transparent. And we're more parents of our generation are more willing to talk about things. But we didn't have a blueprint or a philosophy on how to do it, because everything was far more. Just kind of quiet, I guess it's probably the nicest word to say parents didn't talk about money, and there wasn't as ease of access to learn about things. Because technology didn't exist, or at least certain technologies didn't exist 20 plus years ago. So I think that the idea is that the very early ages are the parts where we can start to figure out what what lessons are the biggest ones to bring in. And what I learned is that, as a parent, most parents can agree to this, that when you try to tell your child what to do, there's about a 5050 shot that they'll do it, or they'll do the exact opposite of what you tell them to do. So one of the really hard things that it seemed was a trying to have a conversation about money with a child can be really helpful, but it also can be can completely blow up or backfire. So the first question I wanted to figure out was, what's the best way to try to communicate these lessons to children, and I discovered that one of the best ways a lot of kids learn growing up is through experience when they experience something when they actually get to have ownership and reflect on what's going through their thoughts at that time. Then they remember it significantly more. A lot of kids when they're growing up, they want to play parents, they want to act like their their mom or dad who's sitting at a desk working or they want to take on certain responsibilities just to show hey, I can do this too. So with storytelling, I realized that's a great way to put scenarios in front of children where they can see someone else going through something and then try to imagine what they would be feeling as they went through that scenario. And so I had never really written a children's picture book. So I decided when I started the process To seek the advice of coaches and things like that, and one of the first lessons that really struck me when writing a children's picture book was that you never want to have the parent telling the child what to do in the story. You always want the child to either be doing something with a friend or a sibling or something like that someone near in age to them, where they're going through an experience together. And they're figuring it out as they go. And you also don't want to say what emotions the child is feeling in the story. So you don't want to say Johnny was sad, or Kate was, was happy, you'd rather you want to say, you know, tears were falling from so and so's eyes, or whatever it might be, and allow the children to try to grasp what emotions are being felt. And it sounds it sounds a little kind of ambiguous in a way. But the more we can allow kids to take ownership of their thoughts and really step back, and maybe even after they read something or hear stories share what they're thinking, the easier it becomes for those lessons to kind of sit in. And just just as an example, one of my stories, there's currently five children's picture books that are out each teaches a different financial lesson. But for my fourth book, it's called Rohan and Naira and Big Sisters bet. And it's based off of a personal story. I was in my backyard, just throwing the football back and forth with my son. And I said, just out of the blessed, I'll tell you what, Jason, I'll make you a bet. For every catch that we make. I'll give you a quarter. And we can keep playing until you want to stop. But if at any point, you fumble the ball, you lose all the money. So most parents automatically know where this story is going. Right? We we've had that experience in our past, we know, oh, gosh, the greed, my I see the greed, I feel that emotion of all know he's gonna make these. And sure enough, we started the game. And Jason had a goal in mind, he had a set target for something he wanted to achieve. And he we knew how much he added how many throws he had to do to get to that target. But as we got closer and closer to that target, he started to think of other things that he wanted to get bigger, more expensive things. And so we got up to $10 and $15 and $18.75. And I said are you sure you want one more throw. And he paused and thought about it and said just one more dad. And we all know what happens next. But the reason it was such an important story is that after he fumbled the ball, instead of getting mad at me, he just stared at the ball and say it was quiet for a moment. And what I realized in that moment is that he knew it wasn't his dad's fault or anyone else's fault. It was a decision he made and he had the choice throughout that entire game to stop, stop playing. And it was one of those moments where I like he's gonna remember this for the rest of his life. So next time, he's you know, has a goal and then maybe has other greed, greed aspects or emotions starting to kick in, he might reflect a bit more on it. So in Rohan Naira, instead of having an adult play game with their son, it's a brother and sister who are playing a game, the older sister comes home from college and brings a football in and they play and the younger brother Rouhani fumbles the ball and they get to have that that experience together. And so children get to read that and then kind of see all the different the excitement of catching all the balls of earning the money, but also the the reflection that the character is feeling as he's looking down at that ball on the ground. And that's part where you can add parents instead of saying, here's what you should be thinking parents can ask their kids. What do you think so and so is thinking right now? Or what do you think? Why? Why did they decide to keep playing so so it's a great way to kind of instead of just telling people have a conversation back and forth. And that's really when kids get to kind of think about decisions they're making.

Anna Sergunina: 00:13:53

I love that I love that structure, or like the the thought behind how you were writing these stories, right to teach something like, you know, an important money lesson. One of the books that my son loves to read it is I forget the author, but it's the main character a boy named and is Danny. And there's a couple of books. And it's, it's kind of like a book that sort of has, like nine or 10 stories in it. And so there's like a short story of him doing something and then there's like a prompt. And so one of the superpowers that then he has is a power to choose. And so his parents are trying to teach him the lessons. And so like something happens in these day, and then there's two choices, what would Danny do? And I love those questions because I feel like and I noticed recently my son is picking the options where it's sort of less conflict or like the, you know, the better option of the two. And I'm like, Okay, fine. That's your choice. You kind of feel that way, right? But it's also like these prompts of them thinking about, you know, what would their choices be and what would be the consequence This is really, really important. Like these are like you're trying to give them life lessons, right? In the sense of through these stories. Well,

Anna Sergunina: 00:15:07

Anthony C Delauney: and I think just to that point, so I have a son and daughter, and my daughter is 14, my son is 12. Now, but growing up, you can raise children the exact same way. And they can be totally different individuals, they can have totally different interests, passions, and the way they they even view money is going to be very different. So to try to teach them the same lesson could be interpreted in very different ways. So when you actually get to, as a parent, give them choice and learn as they're making the choices of how they're viewing things, then you can articulate how am I going to use this as a way of having a discussion about a certain aspect of money or life in general. Because some kids are savers. My son, Jason, he will hoard as much money as he can. My daughter Abby is more giving, she will give away every penny she has. And there's nothing wrong with either one of those approaches. But to have a to discuss something with them. It's a very different conversation between the two depending on how they're viewing, just life in general. In fact, that that actually, the first book I wrote was called DASH and nicking the Jelly Bean game. And if you take a look at the kids, you might notice they look just like my kids. But that's besides the point.

Anna Sergunina: 00:16:24

I wondered, I looked at the books like which one which because you have different names for the kids and like which ones are Anthony.

Anna Sergunina: 00:16:30

Anthony C Delauney: So every every every book involves a different family. And I wanted on a very small side note, I wanted to make sure that if individuals look at the various covers, they'll notice that every family it represents wanted to make sure kids no matter what they looked like, where they were from, what their situation was, they felt like they could relate to the characters in these stories. And what we'll discover in the later stories is that they all these kids live in the same neighborhood. So they start interacting and doing things together. But I think it's important that when you're reading, you just feel like this story is this, I could be in this book, you know, someone who in my position couldn't be in here. But go into the idea of my daughter being the giver and my son being that the saver the first book was called dashing Nick in the Jellybean game. And with that book, what we had, have you heard of the the marshmallow study from years back? Are you familiar with the marshmallow study?

Anna Sergunina: 00:17:22

It was based out I think I have Yes. So

Anna Sergunina: 00:17:25

Anthony C Delauney: it was basically a study where they put children in a room and they put a marshmallow in front of them. And they said, I'm going to leave the room. And when I come back, if there's a marshmallow there, I'll give you another marshmallow and they stay to see which kids can resist the temptation of the marshmallow versus would eat it right away. And what I did is I took that concept and applied it to Jelly Beans where a brother and sister wake up one morning and they find a note waiting for them to play the Jelly Bean game and they go downstairs and there's a giant jar of jelly beans and two plates that each have 10 jelly beans on them. And the game basically says for every hour, you can resist and there's 10 jelly beans on the plate you'll get five more so dash being the saver, he immediately takes another plate and covers up his jelly beans. Whereas Nicky looks at a jelly beans for about 30 seconds and somehow the jelly beans disappear. So she a bit more impulsive. She's like you know what I'm not. But as the story goes on what we see as dashes pile grows and grows and grows and Nicky's plate stays empty. And if that was the story by itself, that'd be a terrible story. But what we see later happened later in the story is that dash ceases sister struggling and realizes that there's a way he can help her out he's gonna loan her 10 jelly beans and ask for just 12 back when the game ends so she can also participate and win and it just shows there can be compassion there can be charity you can help others who may have been had poor decisions or poor circumstances whatever it might be. But there's little lessons that that book itself has nothing to do with money it's it's there's a lot of young children they don't understand money as you said, How much money do you have mom? Are you talking about my bank account? Are you talking about in the purse or whatever it might be and children understand money because they can't earn it and they can't use it at a very in their elementary years. But they do other understand other things like candy. So if you if when it comes to negotiating for candy kids are masters they they're all the sudden experts when it comes to negotiating to try to figure out how to get that candy into their bucket. So I tried to use something that kids found a passion around and the idea of introducing concepts like dash putting the plate on top of his Jelly Bean so we can't see them. And in the finance world we know that one of the best ways to protect yourself from making an impulse decision is put that money someplace you can't see money not seen as money not missed. So we can start introducing these concepts in more basic ways. Kids can understand that when they get older, the same concepts can apply to other areas of life like money or whatever it might be. So sorry for the long winded part on dashing Nikki. But that's that's the idea.

Anna Sergunina: 00:20:11

No, these are great. No, I love them. I know. I mean, I'm sure they all have a really good lesson. So what is a good age? Or what is the target age for the books that you've written? I know, there's all kinds of books out there. On this topic.

Anna Sergunina: 00:20:25

Anthony C Delauney: The target age is really ages seven and under. They're meant all the books rhyme that they read a lot like Dr. Seuss books, where it's something where parents could read at night to the kids or teachers can read in a classroom to their students. But it's something where it's fun to read over and over again. And hopefully, the words are basic enough that the kids can start to learn those words and speak those words. As the years progressed, so, obviously the ability to learn how to read but also to learn a little financial subliminal messaging in the process.

Anna Sergunina: 00:20:58

Yeah, no, I love that. I want to I want to hear your thoughts on if you've done this for your kids, or just in general, what you think, I guess, financial planner to financial planner, but what do you think about allowances and paid chores like is one of the things you mentioned, in one of the books you have written talks about somebody's kind of being more a saver versus a spender. And like the this concept of chores, or having kids do chores, so you can pay the money. And then some families choose to do an allowance or others to sort of to do a mix of both. So what are you what is your take on it? And what have you done for your kids?

Anna Sergunina: 00:21:36

Anthony C Delauney: Sure. So no matter what even whether you're doing an allowance or not, there's probably going to be some circumstance where money makes its way to the children, it could be a gift from a family member or a birthday gift or something like that. So the question becomes, what do you do at that time? So I'll I'll answer the allowance question. But one thing I'll share in terms of when they receive money that I think is really a second step is a lot of that was many individuals heard of the idea of kind of three jars, where you might have a spend jar, a save jar, and a gift jar. And I think that that concept is brilliant, it's really helpful for kids to kind of visualize that I'm doing these three things versus just having all the money sitting in one account. But I think that it's really would be really helpful to take it a step further. And instead of just kind of the parent saying, you're going to put a third into your savings third into your splintering to give, give the kids a little bit more ownership in the decision making say, My daughter, as I said, is a giver. And my son is a saver. So you can still put parameters on things, but maybe say that you have to do at least 20% into each. But if you want to do a little bit more into one of the other buckets, you have the choice to do that. And then once again, it's giving the children a sense of ownership and their decision. They're, they feel more like this is something that I chose to do versus someone somebody else told me to do. And they get to see their piles grow based on where their passions are. So that's the first thing I would share is that when money comes in, just kind of letting the kids feel like they this is something that they're they're owning, and they're part of is really important, in terms of the allowance itself is definitely a topic that some people have very mixed emotions on. I do not see any harm in allowance. The harm, I see sometimes where money is viewed you viewed as a transactional type item, I think it's very important that parents, we all have to live in a household we all have to support and when everything that a child does, potentially and this is just a sort of an eye, an example. If everything a child does yield some type of reward, then that they're that incentive for the child to keep doing those things when the reward stops, or maybe when they're a bit older. And that should be part of their daily routine, it goes down. So I think it's really important that if you are going to incorporate the allowance, there may be some unique type things that you might give a little added bonus for. But I think that the you just want to be very cautious of making sure that the family knows and the children know that they need to participate in the household just as much as everyone else's. We all play our parts and we all help each other out. And just not to make money a transactional type thing otherwise it can lead to problems as the kids get older.

Anna Sergunina: 00:24:24

Yeah, I love that part. A lot. I recently saw something online. And I think it was older kids. But a mom has a similar system where you know, the kids get paid for their chores, what she does, and I was like wow, this is really clever. But still teaching these, you know, grown up financial lessons. She charges them for rent. Like I don't know, I think they get like $5 or $6 No, there were a little older maybe like seven or $8 so they get they pay $1 for rent every month they pay $1 for their food. So kind of teaching them you know the ideas that, yeah, you're gonna get all the money, right if you work for it, but you still have to pay for expenses and be responsible for, you know, your share of things. So I was like, wow, this is really awesome. I never thought about I felt like charging your kids like right charging your kids rent or stuff like that. It's just like what what kind of parents would do that?

Anna Sergunina: 00:25:21

Anthony C Delauney: When they get to that level where they're in middle school and high school it because it makes more sense to try to get put them in a safe environment where you know, you're not going to have them starve. If they make a poor decision, you're not going to say no, you don't get to eat because you didn't, you didn't pay your food bill this month this week. Yes. But on the flip side, when it comes to the really young age, the cautionary tale I have is that in the past decade, as I mentioned, technology has become so abundant. And there's so many apps and things like that. And a lot of times, especially when it comes to things like trading and so forth, you place a trade and confetti comes down from the ceiling and bells and whistles go off. And it's a I mean, the a lot of games and apps are meant to create a dopamine effect, that when something happens, you get a hit of, of joy and excitement. But in the finance world, usually emotion and money do not in any way go hand in hand. And when you're making emotional decisions with money, it's usually not going to be in your best interest. So the hard part with with young children is it's definitely great to incorporate those lessons as they get into their later years of life or childhood. But for the very young ones, we want to be very cautious around the emotion that they're feeling when they're learning something. So if they start to incorporate that the idea that I'm going to I really love trading, because it feels so good. And it's so much fun, that that down the road could be more harm than good in some circumstances. So it's not that we don't want to introduce it, but we just want them to be more mindful of their emotions, before we really start introducing those more complex ideas to them.

Anna Sergunina: 00:27:02

Yeah, no, I mean, you're right, the technology in the world we live in, is all centered around, I mean, even just, you know, not in the money related areas there. There's so much of it that they already get in their daily lives, that I feel like some of these basic concepts like you're gonna, you're gonna touch the money, you gotta feel what it's like, you have to put it in your pocket, go pick up the coins, if you saw a coin on a street, pick it up. You know, that's what we used to do, right? Back in the day. I mean, you still do that today. But just like that, right? It's not numbers that you see on your iPad, or where whatever device you're using that kind of like grows for you.

Anna Sergunina: 00:27:42

Anthony C Delauney: To that point, like, it's like fitness. There's lots of fitness apps out there. But we're not all in much better shape than we were back in the day. The fitness app by itself almost takes away that sense of reality, and honestly accountability it because the app isn't going to tell you Oh, you're doing a bad job. Or, I mean, it might give you a little warning or heads up. But But yes, those basic lessons, a child will likely learn more from taking a trip to the grocery store with their parent than they were at will from trading a stock on an app in those life lessons on. Wow, these are all the things that we need to buy when we go to the grocery store. And this is how much it costs and my son, he might be a hoarder. When it comes to the over saver, that's not much better, whereas the saver, but when we go to the gas station, he will he'll notice that bottom line and always want to Dad, Dad, can we get this? Can we get that candy, whatever it might be. And I said to him at one point, I said, why I'll make you a deal. For if you really want to get this candy, I'll let you get it but you have to pay for 50% of it, or you have to pay for 75% of it. And then for the savers for the kids that like to all of a sudden the negotiating stopped. Because now his it's it's his money that he has to actually use and he has to bring it with him to decide if it's going to. And you'd be amazed for all the parents that are savers out there that you don't have to have that negotiating back and forth anymore. They just say it's worth it or it's not I don't want I don't want it anymore. Yes, exactly. So it's fun how kids, it's a constant game of back and forth with them. So, but a lot of fun. Yeah,

Anna Sergunina: 00:29:27

no, I agree with that. And I think parents if they are in it, right. And I hope I hope that our listeners that we have here on this show are into you know, making sure that that they walk the right path when it comes to this kind of conversations. But um, one of the things you and I really know well that we adults ourselves, have some things to learn about our own money, right. So it's like, we're still sort of learning and growing and that's okay. This is why we're humans. And then at the same time we're raising these these little teeny humans and trying to make The best side of them. So what are what are some of the mistakes, or, you know, common issues that parents face when they're kind of embarking on this topic of teaching kids, smart money decisions,

Anna Sergunina: 00:30:14

Anthony C Delauney: the I will say that probably in the adult world, as well as in the child world, the the biggest roadblock that I think prevents people from achieving success in life, but especially in money, is fear of judgment. And it seems very kind of ambiguous. But a lot of times individuals feel like they can't talk to their kids, because they made mistakes in the past, or they can't even talk to a financial professional, because they're embarrassed for whatever their situation is. And then the reality is, just as a financial professional is there to help someone, a parent is there to help. And I think that if there's a key takeaway that parents can have when trying to work with their kids, kids will make mistakes. And the best part about making mistakes as a child is that they're in a safe environment where parents who love them, will, will be there for them, and will pull them out of whatever mess might have taken place. But I think that the really key thing that is important for parents to try to take away is when a child does make a mistake, how do we react to the child, if we tell them, look at what you did, that was terrible, that was bad. And we associate a mistake with negativity and ridicule, then that child will be afraid to make decisions in the future and afraid to try things and afraid to learn things. But if we say if we approach somebody and talk about the experience, and try to be open minded, let them share their thoughts. It's hard to do, because we're tired as parents, and we've got a lot going on. But if they can go into adulthood with a sense of confidence in who they are, and in the decision, and in making decisions, it makes things a whole lot easier to say, I can do this, or maybe I can't do this, and I need help. And when seeking out help not feeling like hey, I'm going to be ridiculed or made fun of but this person is here to help me. And I'm going to learn and benefit from this experience. So it's amazing how our subconscious can really play tricks on us. But the sooner we can start helping our kids to feel that sense of we don't want to just coddle them, but we do want to be there for them and blu rays them up when they fail, but let them fail. So

Anna Sergunina: 00:32:31

yes, no, it's really, really important. Thank you. I love that. Okay, I am one of the books that you have written is talking about why Mom and Dad go to work. And I, I've had those questions. You know, what, why can we have a day off today and things like that? Without, you know, without going into much details into what the book is about? What Yeah, what's your parents kind of know about like that question? How do you what what do you tell your kids? Why did you go to work?

Anna Sergunina: 00:33:00

Anthony C Delauney: So that quest, that book was really a relief, a very long ago, very life experience where I left for work one day, my wife took a video of my son and daughter, they were two and four at the time. And my daughter turned around after the door shut and she's bawling. She's crying her eyes out saying Why Why does dad have to leave us? Why does that? Why is that going to work? And I've had so many parents that have had that same scenario take place, it's kind of children don't understand why can't we be home in there to play and have fun. And so if we just say we go, we're going to work to make money, then oh, well, children will say, well, here, take my piggy bank, and you can stay with me. But I think it's important for children to understand that obviously, money is part of it. And but when people go to work, they're doing all sorts of incredible things to help other people. We all go we go and it kind of goes like back to her saying with the allowance. If we're looking at this as we're one community in our household, we're one family. And we're here to help each other than when mom or dad is going off to work. They're going out there to to help other people just just like this pocket where you're helping individuals learn which is awesome. But on the same end, it is important to understand that money is part of that. And when you do that, for others, they pay you with money. And that that book is called Lilia Mahler my mom and dad work. That book incorporates the basics of a budget actually saying, what is it? Why do we bring in money. And then we saw in the book mom talks about all the different things that money pays for like the groceries, the clothing, the phone, the shelter that they have. And we start to see as the book progresses, just wow, there's a lot of stuff that our family has to pay for. And the sooner we can kind of introduce those basics of what a budget is the word budget, it's almost taboo and nobody wants to say the word budget. But if children start to associate it with a positive like, one fun game that I also encourage parents to play is when you're sitting in the dinner table if I know we're all very busy, but if you're ever sitting around the table as a family, maybe just have every person go one after the other, what's something that the family pays for that's in the house? And just kind of back and forth. And you'd be amazed what kinds of crazy ideas pop up. But it just once again, it gets the kids thinking and the kids participating. And that's really what it's all about.

Anna Sergunina: 00:35:22

I love it. No, I am totally using that game because we've been playing. I'm going on a picnic game, the last few months. And still fun. We're like, it's a good game. I mean, yeah, no, no, I mean, I love it. I mean, our image and imagination around the table is, is through the roof. But yeah, I like I like the the budget to kind of like demystify the stigma around budget and restrictions and all of that, that we as adults struggle with. I wish my parents played that played that game, but they didn't. So Anthony, I, I'd love for our listeners to connect with you. Because I know there's more and what you had already written in your in your books that we can talk about? How can they do that?

Anna Sergunina: 00:36:10

Anthony C Delauney: Sure. So the books are available pretty much anywhere books are sold. They're all under the owning the dash brand. Owning the dash is a little bit odd. But only the dash is on your your there's a story behind that not enough time for this podcast. But I would share that it's basically between your on tombstone between your birth and near death dates that dash in between. So basically taking ownership of your life. But if you go to owningthedash.com, all the books can be found there, as well as there is a page on the website called for educators, where there's a variety of discussion questions that are all free, as well as some games and activities that you can play with your kids. And they're also all free as well. The only thing you need is a password. And I'm happy to share that with your listeners. The password is owningmydashexclamationpoint, with a capital O A capital M and a capital D. So only my dash exclamation point, all of those will open up and they're free to download and play with the kids. And there's a fun coloring book for a budget, a kid's budget book. But really the idea is just having fun ways to incorporate games and activities and books with your kids so you can all have fun together.

Anna Sergunina: 00:37:28

I love it. Thank you so much. This is such a treat. I think for our listeners and all of your books are available anywhere the books are sold, correct? Yes,

Anna Sergunina: 00:37:34

Anthony C Delauney: Amazon Barnes Noble. All those fun spots.

Anna Sergunina: 00:37:37

Awesome. Okay. I'll include all of that in the show notes. This. This has been such a pleasure to have you here. Any last minute. thoughts before we close?

Anna Sergunina: 00:37:45

Anthony C Delauney: No, I just thank you so much. This has been wonderful and it's been a great conversation. Thank you.

Anna Sergunina: 00:37:50

I appreciate it.