Mike Smith:
Terry, I’m sure that many parents who are listening to this week’s programs are thinking, “That’s a huge risk—letting a teenager manage the household finances!” Did you have any concerns as you gave each of your teens this responsibility?

Terry Stokka:
Yes, we thought about it and as I had mentioned before, the bank thought we were crazy to put four kids onto our checking account! But we trusted the kids, and we did a lot of explaining and showing them how to write checks, how to balance a checkbook (and that’s a tough thing to do, balancing a checkbook, even to this day). We had used some compartmented piggy banks for many years, so the children understood some things of the principles of giving and saving and spending, but they really rose to the challenge and did it well. We had a cubbyhole on the desk that we used to put the bills and I would put them there. It would take some reminding once in a while to get them to handle the bills, because they were busy with school and had many things to do. But they followed through on it and they learned a lot. And I’ll have to say I double-checked the checkbook sometimes when they weren’t looking, just to make sure things were going well—but they learned well and they did well!

Mike:
Well, that’s very good, practical advice, Terry. Thanks for sharing that with us today. And until next time, I’m Mike Smith.