Jason Zweig from the WSJ wrote a great piece in this weekend’s journal. In it he writes “Don’t let yourself be fooled into believing its unusual that nobody knows what’s going on right now. The past makes sense only in retrospect, after our minds burnish it to our liking. The present almost always defies our efforts to make sense of it.”

Read the the WSJ piece here.

Behavioral and emotional aspects of our planning are important to us. When we better understand ourselves, we get closer to breaking our old patterns. For more inspiration, we point you to a recent WSJ article “For the New Year, Say No to Negativity”.

What we love about the article is that it acknowledges the truth found in the research – bad stuff impacts us more than good stuff – but the article and corresponding book offer practical ways to turn the corner towards a clear focus on health and wealth in 2020. And you know we are suckers for anyone who uses our motto “take the long view” to help readers/investors shift their outlook to a prosperous lens.

“By rationally looking at long-term trends instead of viscerally reacting to the horror story of the day, you’ll see that there’s much more to celebrate than to mourn.”

As parents, we commit to years of financial responsibility when we welcome our children into the world. It’s an obligation we take on willingly. (Well, most days.) But we also hope to prepare our sons and daughters for the day they start creating their own financial independence … and, eventually, maybe a grandchild or two.

To instill meaningful financial literacy takes a team approach indeed – in school and at home. It also takes the right approach. A Wall Street Journal article, “The Smart Way to Teach Children About Money,” offered some important insights on that, suggesting it’s both what we teach as well as when we teach it.

Remember those Golden Rules: Reading, Writing and Arithmetic? Surprise. We may hate to admit it, but our parents and grandparents might have been on to something when they emphasized the importance of learning the basics – walking before running.

The WSJ columnist comments:

“We focus on teaching finance in school when regular math is much more effective at helping children manage money. We cram their heads full of financial facts and strategies years before they’ll actually need any of it—ensuring that they won’t remember the lessons when they’re most needed. And we squirm about discussing our own family income and debt, giving children fears and false impressions they may never shake off.”

So how do you determine an effective way to roll out your lessons on financial literacy and have open, honest conversations with your kids about your family wealth? While every household should move at its own pace, Lisa and I decided to introduce our daughter Harper to this handy chart from the JumpStart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, which was included in the WSJ article.

I told Harper we would set aside time to go over each activity with her whenever she was ready to roll. Harper not only found the chart of interest, she’s been known to haul it around in her backpack. If you check out our photo of the month, we seem to have captured her attention.