Capitate Your Kids: Give Your Kids a Financial Head Start

If I could apply everything I read, I would be a better parent and my kids would become much more responsible. Step-by-step the book gives advice on how to raise your kids to be responsible with their finances.

Whitcomb's ideas are generally intelligent. He signs contracts with his kids to teach them the value of money and his concept is sound. Learning to be frugal (not wasteful) at an early age makes it much easier to become a successful handler of money in your adult years. My only beef is the author's frequent suggestion that charity comes first. It is much more reasonable to put away part of your earnings as savings first, then live within your means, and finally give to charity, if you are able.

Capitate in this book means a contractual arrangement whereby you pay to your child a specific sum of money each month to cover the cost of living that you would normally pay - clothes, food, entertainment, transportation, etc.In mutual agreement, I actually tried this idea with one of my daughters many years ago, long before this concept was ever printed in a book. The "contract" was for four weeks. By week four, there were no new chic, trendy clothes coming from her favourite shop. While "all the other kids" spent Saturday night at the movies, she pumped up the volume on her stereo, had a stimulating conversation with her dog and the four walls (words which I shall never repeat) and drowned her sorrow in a pint of ice cream! She washed her hair with bubble bath because she ran out of shampoo. The charge to use the washer and dryer was $2, which she no longer had, so she washed her jeans and t-shirt by hand, also in bubble bath...and chipped a nail! About this time, she discovered fruit loops no longer look cute 'cause they float and cease to be comfort food after the the third meal of the day. I would have traded her for Oscar the Grouch in a heartbeat. One month was all it took to learn the value of money. Today, twenty years later, we can still sit down with coffee in hand and share a laugh over all that bubble bath we went through. Tough love, maybe, but a valuable life lesson was learned. Today, she is a married lady with her own personal finances, zero debt and can manage money like a pro.While not all parents will agree with the approach in "Capitate Your Kids," it is an excellent book based on much the same principle I have just described. The book is a valuable tool in teaching children, especially teens, the value of a dollar and how to manage money - a realistic life lesson that, unfortunately, is not taught in schools.

Teaching children how to properly deal with money and financial planning is a fundamental parental responsibility. In Capitate Your Kids: Teaching Your Teens Financial Independence is an ideal blueprint for successfully caring out this parental fiscal/educational task. It also has the added benefit of helping to alleviate the financial burden of supporting an adolescent in today's consumer oriented society. "Capitation" mans to contract with a child for a fixed amount each month to care for their needs. Included in this written agreement are teen responsibilities for such things as shopping for the best price and keeping receipts. Parents agree not to interfere with teen choices. If the teen has money left over from the month, then he or she can keep it, saving it toward future purchases. If they run out of money before the end of the month, the must do without -- exactly as adults must in a similar situation. Capitate Your Kids is exceptionally well written, superbly presented, and highly recommended for children needing to acquire financial management skills and disciplines so necessary to succeed throughout life as an adult -- and eventually a parent with children of their own.