1) Know where they are at all times. Freedom comes at adulthood. 2) They need to know you need to know where they are at all times. 3) Have agreements about where and when they are to be where they’re supposed to be. 4) Instill honoring agreements. This prepares them for adulthood. As you know, our lives work to the degree we keep our agreements! 5) Stick to your guns! Employ your alphaness. 6) Listen with your whole body. 7) Ask questions that get to the facts. 8) Speak to the facts once they are all in. 9) Share your experience with troublesome issues. 10) You are not their friend. Keep parental status. 11) Investigate before condemning. Too often we jump to conclusions without looking deeply into a matter. 12) Look deeply into their feelings. How did you feel in the same or similar circumstances. 13) Look for opportunities to praise them. Give some form of praise every day. 14) Reward them (and yourself) daily with a hug. Whether they want one or not. 15) Let them see you doing or have done what you ask of them. 16) Explain what works and does not work toward their ultimate success. 17) Explain why work is to be an expression of their Joy and is necessary for their Happiness. 18) Teach them how to cope with difficulty. Your spiritual practice is key here. 19) Share funny stories of your life. Laugh with them often. 20) Reinforce The Golden Rule. Live it yourself. How are you at managing your teen(s)?

I connect to wealth with my feelings in order to have a better relationship with money. It’s all about understanding how to relax into the thrill of it. Let’s say you want to feel better about money or your relationship with money. Let’s say further that you want to relax into the feeling of wealth or, moreover, the thrill of wealth. This can be a nebulous endeavor, a hazy proposition. How does one go about doing that?

First, I understand and know that our feelings drive, or rather, attract our reality. Hence, feeling good about money moment to moment attracts more to me. I’m presuming here that you want more money too.

Then, the exercise becomes one of knowing how to relax into it. I relax into it as I would a warm, soapy, lavender-scented bath… seeing myself drenched in unlimited wealth. This imagery is usually done sitting with my eyes closed, earplugs in, body totally relaxed but any chance I get, I’m in the actual tub with it. Meditate. Move into the feeling of wealth. Visualize…

What is wealth you ? Is it being totally supported by the money you’ve accumulated? For me, it’s…no need to go to a job…ever! Just working because I enjoy it. Is it having the ability to walk into any high-end jeweler and buy the whole place? Is it being in a position to feed, house and educate thousand of hungry and homeless children until their adulthood? I expand my feelings into it here in meditation. Relax and expand into it again and again. How do you feel?

Feel the thrill if it. Let’s take that feeling with us everywhere. Refresh it often. What is wealth to you?

1) I knew of no parenting guides at the onset of parenthood to tell me step by step procedures for raising my child 26 years ago nor a guide for handling my unique relationship with money. I started out, as we all do, with the basic ‘love’ of my child and the basic ‘need’ for money. To connect in meaningful thought and feeling to viable solutions, one must get help from experts.

Advice from our parents (maybe), good books by child psychologists and financial advisors are a great start.

2) Many of us are in denial about our need for examining our relationship with money in very much the same way we are in denial about the need for examining our lack of good parenting skills. Let’s admit it! We need help! Denial led me to cowering in feelings of isolation and exhaustion. I bucked up and boldly sought out the information I needed.

3) The uniqueness of our situations on both fronts (child and money) is colored by our experiences in childhood. Therefore advice from parents and grandparents may need to be weighed and measured. One may need to consider ones’ parents’ current station in life financially and ones’ own treatment as a child. Were you hungry and homeless? Were you rich and spoiled? What kind of in-between? How have these experiences colored your relationship with money and/or raising a child? Look at what you actually do with the money in your hands. Do you spend more than you earn? What do you see in your childhood that influences your money games?