You Can’t Outsource Financial Parenting: Raising Capable Kids in a Complex World
JOLINE GODFREY has been an innovator in financial education and well-being for families for over three decades. Since 1992, she has been a pioneer in the movement to increase financial intelligence among young people. Innovator of a unique developmental approach to financial education, Godfrey's introduction of the financial apprenticeship stage of life has given parents and community leaders revolutionary tools for becoming better money mentors for kids.
Growing up in a family business herself gave her an intimate understanding of the complexity of sustaining family and career across generations, and her training as a clinical social worker and work in one of Boston’s oldest settlement houses provided her insight into how powerful even a small amount of financial education could be.
Joline specialized in family and gender issues—in the context of work and business at Polaroid Corporation, and she was invited by Inc. Magazine to host a series of dinner table gatherings for women entrepreneurs which she documented in her first book, Our Wildest Dreams. Insights gained from those tables led to deep curiosity about how women acquire financial fluency, and in 1992 she founded An Income of Her Own, the country’s first non-profit focused exclusively on financial education for girls and women, and the publication of No More Frogs to Kiss: 99 Ways to Give Economic Power to Girls. Godfrey subsequently started Independent Means Inc. to provide financial education girls and boys and published Raising Financially Fit Kids, now a classic resource for building financial fluency in kids. Independent Means was acquired in 2015.
Godfrey’s invention of a developmental approach to financial education for family members from the youngest child to the oldest financial novice was a breakthrough in financial education which has earned her numerous speaking and consulting opportunities including invitations to address gatherings that include Fast Company and Inc. 500 conferences, the exclusive Padres e Hijos gathering in Latin America, hosted each year by Carlos Slim, and an historic meeting at Ten Downing Street organized by Gordon Brown to encourage a more entrepreneurial UK generation. She has spoken to family offices from Dallas to Dubai and at many of the most prestigious family office gatherings in the world. She is currently a Managing Director with The Hawthorn Institute for Family Success.
The Unexpected Table is Godfrey’s personal platform to write, think, explore and try out new ideas with families intent on thriving in the midst of change. Hosting conversations at eclectic tables to bring complex groups together to learn and discover remains one of her core passions.
A Maine native, Joline graduated from the University of Maine and received an M.S.W. from Boston University. She was awarded an Honorary Degree in Business from Bentley College for her achievements in financial education. Godfrey was a Kellogg Leadership Fellow and has been recognized in features for The Today Show, Oprah, Fortune, Business Week, Inc. Magazine, and The New York Times. Joline is at work on two new books focused on what makes families thrive. She lives in Ojai, Ca. and Tenants Harbor, Maine.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
Welcome to the Tamarind Learning Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Kirby Rosplock, and I'm joined by a very special guest today, Joline Godfrey, who is the sage, the wisest woman I know when it comes to all things financial parenting, raising affluent children. And dealing with complexity in family systems. So I am thrilled to have Joline here. She has been in this space for a long time. I won't tell you how many years, but it's, it's maybe decades now. Um, and I've had the blessing of working with her in many different stages of my career, which is why I'm so thrilled to have her on the podcast today because she's a legend, you know, clinical social worker by background, came into the space and saw the opportunity for things to change and has wisdom that's grown over the ages, which is what I love about how she is relevant and so on it with families. So, Joline, welcome.
Joline Godfrey
Thanks, Kirby. You know, I love being here. And honestly, there is something so important about the fact that we've both grown through so many stages from a time when financial education was so dry, really. And you and I have watched so many— the evolution and the changes. So I'm as excited to be here as you can imagine. So thank you.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
Well, I gave a little teaser about your background, but tell us sort of how did you get inspired and motivated to come into this niche space that we're in?
Joline Godfrey
This was such an accident in some ways. I had been doing— well, in fairness, I'd been the in-house shrink at what was once upon a time the Polaroid Corporation. So I was working in very large systems and really looking at the psychological life of employees. And I got invited by Inc. magazine, of all things, to go out and interview women entrepreneurs. And I talked to women in, you know, all over the country. And at the time, I didn't really know what I was doing. What they were doing. So I would just plunk a recorder in the middle of the table and have a conversation. When I came out of those interviews, I had transcripts that were really extraordinary. And what I was curious about at that moment was how the lives of those adult women would have been different had anybody talked to them when they were little girls about money. And of course, nobody talked to girls about money back in the day. It's much better now, but still not great, to be fair. Anyway, those transcripts turned into my first book, which was called Our Wildest Dreams. And for a while, I was really focused on financial education for girls and women.
Joline Godfrey
And, you know, not surprisingly, I got discovered by other families and at that point really was beginning to make up that developmental approach to financial education and like Lana Turner in the drugstore, it was like, oh, there was a market out there for what I was doing. And I think it was very early days you and I met because you were in one of the only companies that was tackling this.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
Well, I know we relied heavily on you in early 2000s. And I mean, I remember reading your financial literacy book like Raising Financially Fit Kids when there was really nothing else on the shelf and thinking, wow, this is, this is pretty cool. And I love this idea of having capacity and having this approach to, to connecting with even like young, young people, little people all the way up into the teens, tweens, and then young adulthood. And so talk to us a little bit more about this developmental approach and why it's important to think about it maybe even before you have kids.
Joline Godfrey
Before, that's a great, great point. We take for granted that there is a developmental way of acquiring language, of learning to walk, even developing our moral compass and moral code. That, that is developmental, and most families kind of understand that. For some reason, as the developmental psychologists were working, we just skipped right over money as though you must acquire that understanding through osmosis. And in fairness, I think there was a time when the financial landscape was fundamentally simpler, less complicated, and you probably did learn a lot because your parents or your grandparents were telling you to save for a rainy day or, you know, hold on to your goods or whatever it was that the truisms in that family happened to be. But as from really the 1980s on, as money turned into finance, it got more and more complicated. Yeah. So just hoping that you were going to pick it up from your mom or your grandparents was not realistic. And yet What we were seeing is that by the time we could talk kids into coming to some program or some class, they were busy or they had other interests or they didn't see the value of talking about money.
Joline Godfrey
And their parents who were already uneasy about, well, what are we going to do about trust funds? How are we going to talk to them about trust funds? They didn't really want to talk about it either. So, there was this long— for a long period, this— what I think of as a no man's land, uh, we're just not gonna address this. And then we did, and often it would be advisors doing their best with teenagers who were resistant and— or who were really into it but didn't quite know how to— what to do with the information they had. So anyway, I have been frustrated for all those decades you refer to with the fact that families would come to us, but, and their kids were pretty baked. They already had habits in place and they already had values in place that were complicating how families taught financial ideas and practices to their kids. So, It happened that finally I got a family that was coming to the end of a dynasty trust, and they began to understand that they better do something because change was going to be significant now. Yeah. And how are they going to prepare these multiple generations for an unprecedented future in terms of family practices?
Joline Godfrey
At which point I felt free to say, well, I'm happy to help, but you really need to start with that 0 to 10 group and take a long, kind of a long view in addition to doing programming for the tweens, teens, and adults that are also part of this family system. And though we had that developmental stage for quite a long time, we didn't have anybody who was really paying attention to it. And so it's really been over the last 4 or 5 years that we've had people who are on the ground working with those stages that we laid out. You're right, about 25 years ago.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. And so parents don't get any sort of instruction card when they come out of the womb saying, oh, by the way, there's this whole like financial literacy thing that you should really know about. Talk to us about how you help the families themselves, how you help the parents themselves, and what does that look like?
Joline Godfrey
That's been the last 3 years of my life. Um, it's true. There is no manual and the, the decks that the big financial companies put out, even the great business schools who do, you know, the best they can.
Joline Godfrey
They are not useful really in a practical way. So what we've been doing is putting a ridiculous amount of time and money into the development of what I think of as products that are somewhere between Lego and Apple. That is serious analog, gorgeous design, but have some access And honestly, this is one of the reasons you and I are talking to the work you are doing, and we're doing more digital work, but certainly not at the level you are up to. And it is this convergence of analog and digital that makes the difference, but it is also bringing in serious design so it looks gorgeous, it feels great to touch, and it's fun. I mean, nobody wants to be dragged down by boring tools that you have to use with your kids.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. So, well, and I think analog is the way to go, as you've aptly discerned, because the younger groups— I mean, how many parents are like, oh my gosh, I don't want my kid to have an iPad or anything screen-like until they're at least, you know, well, they get it in school a little bit, but they don't wanna be giving phones and empowering them in that way. So I also feel like that creates a connection point with mom and dad and maybe caregivers or whoever to reinforce like tactile, cuz we know everyone has different learning styles. So talk to us, like give us an example of what you might do with, I don't know, an 8-year-old.
Joline Godfrey
Oh, well, it sounds ridiculous, but we have, for example, the storybook of Raffi's Superpowers. Superpowers are a great way to introduce intellectual capital to kids. And one of the things we try to do is really expand the idea of what wealth is in kids, because one of the problems affluent families have is that kids are trying to sort out identity and they wanna be more than their family's name. They wanna be more than money. But if we just focus on the fact that they're rich kids, We just don't get anywhere, or we get highly entitled kids, which of course is not what any family wants. So the importance of having these analog tools is really twofold. One is it does expand the idea of what it means to be wealthy or to be affluent, because we're talking about intellectual, social, and human capital as well as financial capital. But the other thing that it does is that it gives a direct connection between parent and child. We keep saying in our work at Bounce that you can outsource financial education, you cannot outsource financial parenting. And if you do try to overlook it or forget it, what you are missing is the ability to pass on your values, to pass on any kind of legacy, to really instill kids in the expectations that you have for your family.
Joline Godfrey
You know, no matter how good the advisor is, no matter how good the tutor is, they're just not gonna be able to be in your voice in the same way. So
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
I love that. I love that. That's so accurate. And I also feel like there's so much power when a parent really realizes the opportunity to, build this relationship and instill those critical values that have to do with financial, financial wellbeing, have to do with like understanding means and what's a need or what's a want. Tell us a story of a parent that you saw just hit it out of the park, just excel, just take this to the next level.
Joline Godfrey
Two stories that just blow me away. One happened in a kitchen.
Joline Godfrey
I happened to just be sitting there. 8-year-old comes into the kitchen and says to his mother, who's standing there, I want— I don't even remember what he wanted, but I want X. And the mom looked at him and said, well, no, that's not a great idea. I'm not going to buy that. And without missing a beat, this kid said, well, why not? We can afford it. To which she said, without missing a beat, Well, just because we can doesn't mean we should. And I tell that story to every family I meet because there, I think there are a lot of families who don't know what to say when the kid says, well, what's your problem? We can't afford it. Uh, but the paradox of wealth that you and I see all the time is that you can give your kid anything under the sun. And the more you do, the more disabling that can be.. And so you need to figure out what your boundaries are with those kids. And watching her do that as it happened, it was like months later, I'm in the same kitchen with the same family. The same kid walks in, he says something else he wants, and she looks at him and he says, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.
Joline Godfrey
Just because we can doesn't mean we should. He got it. There is no class that is going to be as effective as that mother. And that's the financial parenting. That I think hits it out of the, out of the park.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
That's such a good story. And I think that's such a good, um, helpful hint to any parents who are like, oh, I feel like I'm constantly getting hit up for like this and then that. And I know, I, I mean, I, I have two daughters and, uh, we're, we're constantly like, well, recycle that, or well, save that for a rainy day. Like, we're not throwing that out. Like, that could be used for XYZ. Or like like now my youngest is very entrepreneurial saying, oh, I really want to, you know, and my oldest too, sell a lot of like old clothes that she, they know are valuable, right? Lululemon or whatever. And I'm like, great. Like if that's a side hustle, like I'm all for them thinking out about how to be creative. And I think that it also takes parents to be engaged to also say, yeah, Be creative, you know, think about what you can do with your own means, your own skills, your own abilities, whether it's babysitting, walking dogs, or even just, you know, doing anything, bake sales or whatever. So I love that. Talk to me a little bit about what you see, some of the current challenges that families are facing when we're getting to these conversations, when they're saying, Joline, we need your help, but, uh, this is the situation we're in.
Joline Godfrey
Well, there are a couple, and one of the big ones, of course, is time deficits. And I don't know if the world literally is spinning faster or what is different, but we are all suffering time deficits now. Um, particularly families of wealth are able to fill their time with a gazillion things. And then there's another variable that entered actually quite a long time ago, but keeps speeding up, and that is club sports. And I'm— I am a serious— I mean, I love baseball, let me be very clear, uh, and I'm a, I'm a sports junkie myself. But what we've seen is that the extent to which club sports have intervened in regular dinners, in weekend time, have meant that parents are competing for their children's time in a way that is relatively new. And they're— and not only are they competing for their children's time, but they are also competing for voice so that the voice of the parent is so diminished today. They are competing because influencers are out there, peers are out there. What kids are reading and hearing on social media is impacting them. So the truth is that parents really have a harder time getting their kids' attention.
Joline Godfrey
So when they come to us and say, we need to do something, and I say, yes, and you're gonna need to connect to that kid directly, you know, they are befuddled and it's not their fault. It's not bad parenting. It is that the nature of our culture right now is honestly anti-parent, if I if I can put it any other way.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
I think that's really powerful, right? Because we're so used to, like, the old adage of the helicopter parent or, like, the tiger mom and all this stuff. And I agree with you. I see it with a lot of families that I'm working with as well, where there's a sense of agency that I think technology has actually created with a lot of the younger folks. And I agree with you about sports having a daughter in club soccer. Um, so I get it. Like, I, I see how much is vying for their time. And again, they're also, you know, in different stages of their lives, especially when they get beyond grade school into middle school and high school and beyond. They're really trying to figure out connections with their, their, you know, peers. And so parents are kind of last on the list.
Joline Godfrey
Priority. Exactly. Well, and the other thing, I mean, you, you and your company are a huge asset to families. My— I feel like my job is getting those kids ready to take advantage of what you're doing. The more we do to get kids ready to really engage with Tamarind Learning, for example, the more they're going to get out of it. Yeah. And I think the back to developmental, the spectrum, getting kids started so they can really get the most out of the experiences they can have with Tamarind Learning is my work.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
Yeah.
Joline Godfrey
And parents are actually going to get their money's worth out of the work you do at a higher level when kids are better prepared.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. And I don't think we actually dissuade folks younger. 16 is like maybe where they might start, but then they're probably doing it with a parent. But where I love, like, the balance of building a lot of financial skills, building financial curiosity, right? Mm-hmm. I think that's also part of that younger developmental spectrum.
Joline Godfrey
Yeah.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
So that when they're starting to think about like my first job, you know, my first apartment, or can I afford buying a home? Is that even like something we should do? And I think that you've actually started to inculcate the values, the thinking, the, the critical thinking, right? And I think that is really, um, in, you know, the firing squad right now that we aren't building kids to have critical thinking, the skills to, in the capacity to like, know that this isn't a good idea. I shouldn't be doing this. Or like, I, I don't know if I, You know, just because I can, should I? No, it doesn't.
Joline Godfrey
No, it's very scary. I mean, you look at betting is another arena right now that I'm incredibly worried about. I mean, that article that came out in The Atlantic about this terrific guy who'd never bet, Mormon for life, I mean, strong moral compass, and he ends up addicted to betting. What an eye-opener. And I read that and I thought, oh Lord, I have kids who have the means and access to credit cards who I know are betting at the age of 12, for heaven's sakes. Yeah, not good. And so, yes, figuring out how we help parents intervene and really help these kids make critical decisions and have better judgment, I think, is part of our job. But again, competing for their brain space and time is a huge challenge right now.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. And I also see growing up in affluence, there's a confusion of what is mine versus like, what am I born into? And like, isn't really mine cuz it's in trust and there's a trustee and I don't really have access to it. I only get a distribution if I get a distri— you know? So I think there's also this sense of like not being clear about what is really my means. And I, I see a lot of parents who, um, rescue, like they financially rescue their kids all the time because they're getting themselves into trouble, like either betting or credit card debt, um, clothes or— yeah. And I, I would love your thoughts or advice on like, if, if a parent is dealing with that kind of situation, what have you suggested?
Joline Godfrey
Well, over the last few months, honestly, This is something I want to rant about with you for a moment.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
Okay. Go.
Joline Godfrey
You're seeing this.
Joline Godfrey
Yes.
Joline Godfrey
So you and I both have families who come and they talk to us about the, often the young women in the family or girls who are compulsive spenders. They're just spending, spending, spending. And they want to know, they ask me if there's a therapist I can refer them to. And I am embarrassed to tell you that over time I have in fact made some of those referrals, but increasingly I think what just— what you just spoke about is far more important to pay attention to. That is, kids who grow up in affluence are growing up in a lifestyle in which, particularly with girls, they are either rescued or just given money. And it seems completely normal. And so they do have the, the $5,000 purse or the $10,000 purse and the, the designer clothes. And it's because, of course, they can. Yeah, but that is a lifestyle that probably on their own, even if they have a healthy trust fund, family isn't really excited about because those young people don't know how to create wealth. They only know how to spend it.
Joline Godfrey
And so somebody eventually will come to me and say, so I've got this kid who— this 19-year-old or this 29 or even worse, this 49-year-old daughter who's a compulsive spender. When I push, though, increasingly for me, it is, this isn't pathology, this is culture. This is growing up in a system that just gave out money easily without the teaching, without the instruction, the formation that goes with it. And so what happens is that girl or that young person gets labeled as a compulsive spender. There's something wrong with them and they need to be fixed, as opposed to maybe we should rethink things in this family culture, in this system. So I don't know that I'm popular in families because now I'm saying, well, before we get the therapist in here, can we talk about the practices in the family?
Joline Godfrey
That's really what you were just talking about.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. I think sometimes we actually then go to the next rescuer, which is the therapist who's like, let me tell, let's talk about how you feel about spending too much. And then you feel guilty, right? Oh, it's terrible. It's so terrible. And then where do you go from there? Well, then I go and spend some more, you know, like, so at the end of the day, that intervention with the therapist doesn't necessarily change the behavior, which is Okay. We have to look at like, what are your financial means? I mean, I, there, we do have a wonderful activity for those that are more in the adult space that looks at like needs and wants and really gets clear on like, is the $5,000 Ferragamo purse a need or is it, it's a nice to have, but it's like, and you may want it, but you don't really need it. You could get away with a nice Kate Spade or a nice Gucci purse that maybe doesn't have the same, you know, price tag. But I, I really think that there is a, um, a sense of like keeping up with, and that's not sustainable either.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
And I, I love it when families get to this place where they do like a capital sufficiency analysis, looking at what they really have, what they can really spend and how long it will last. And they have these, like, come to Jesus— excuse me— moments and say, okay, you can live, you can live like this for, like, 3, 5, 10 years. But just so you know, like, at that 10-year or 3-year or 5-year mark, stuff is gonna change.
Joline Godfrey
Yeah, yeah. No, and of course, you and I have been around long enough to see that actually happen.
Joline Godfrey
Yeah, it's very sobering.
Joline Godfrey
So What we're trying to do, I mean, I think you've seen, we've got this, for example, we've got this event coming up. It's called What Does It Cost to Feed a Giraffe? And it, there are 4 tracks starting with the little ones who are 5 years old. And the idea is rather than putting it in the family where it gets very personal very quickly, we are projecting into the life of a giraffe. Giraffe, and what does it cost to sustain a giraffe or a lion or a whale or whatever, depending on the zoo we're working with, and helping kids to understand sustainability and cash flow. I mean, those are two ideas that are, you know, have nothing to do with your level of affluence. It's just everybody needs to understand sustainability and cash flow.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
Yeah.
Joline Godfrey
Easy to get. If you're playing with a giraffe as a little kid. And then it's not such a shock when at 15 a parent says, well, you know, the $5,000 purse you could have, but here are the other ways that $5,000 could be allocated and used. What do you want to do? Yeah, that's the engagement that I think is really kind of juicy in a family and fun. Yeah, but we haven't helped families do that until now.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. Yeah. And I, again, it's complex, right? Sometimes this young person doesn't really know what they have access to or what's coming to them, or if they will have it. And, you know, parents, sometimes it's just easier to say yes, and then you're like, oh, I shouldn't have done that. And then, you know, or divorced families, that's another, you know, the modern complex family of like blended families.
Joline Godfrey
So.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
I think there's a lot, a lot of complexity, and I love with how you start young and early, giving them a head start to build some of those formative values, to understand behaviors, understand how it's gonna impact their lives so that as they get older and complexity is only gonna happen more, right? Um, they, they start to have a better framework, a better foundation. I mean, that's. Isn't that what every parent wants their kid to have?
Joline Godfrey
Exactly.
Joline Godfrey
Exactly. And I think the messages parents get, and I think even that grandparents get— what's the role of a grandparent now? Is such that there is confusion on the part of grown-ups for whom the world is so different. And I've had grandparents say to me, my grandkid is on the phone all the time, just looking at it. Can I interrupt them? Will they be mad at me? And it's like, oh, come on, this is your grandkid. Just talk to them. But it has gotten harder. And in some ways, the roles that you and I play are really as coaches to say, yes, it's okay, just do it. Go ahead, interrupt them.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
You know, you're the grown-up here and set some boundaries. Like, whatever happened to, like, we have a rule, like, no phones at the table, like when we're eating. I'm like, I don't want to see that screen. If you have that up, it's like a no-no. But I mean, you do really need to help them because if you don't set the boundaries and shape them, the relational conversations, guess what? They're, they're not going to do it with their peers. They're not going to do it with their spouse. And it's rude, right? It's just rude. Like, and so I know I spend spent way too much money when we lived in Palm Beach sending our kids to etiquette school. But like, there's a whole phone etiquette thing that is like, boy, schools are fighting it every day, right? Oh my God. So I, I know it's, uh, so such a, a big part of like this youth's lives. Um, what's one thing that you're super excited about?
Joline Godfrey
What's, what do you see happening, changing, or, oh my God, So major league executive 18 months ago said to me, "Oh, Joline, we wouldn't be interested in what you're up to because you're focused on younger kids, and we know that we can't make any money on these kids, um, until they're about 25 and older." 18 months later, I am being invited to speak to all the CEOs and the executives, and I'm not going to give away much more identifying information, but it's like, suddenly starting early is beginning to make sense because families are seeing— families are coming to this executive and saying, listen, we can't wait this long. We've got to start earlier. So I think change— change has been tough. I mean, this has not been an easy sale, to be honest, but it is happening rapidly as people see early is better.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
Early is better. And boy, I think the hill is not so hard to climb, right?
Joline Godfrey
Much easier.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
So much easier. Like when you start with someone who's like 40 and has a whole bunch of history of like bad behavior, bad, no sort of foundation, no, no values around money. The hill is like Everest. It's right. It's, it's hard for anyone even with oxygen, right? Exactly. Um, but if, if you start like with that long-term perspective, all of a sudden, you know, and I think there are family, there's parents that do it implicitly. Like they don't even know that they have such, I, I know in my family it was very, very clear. Like we had a very clear relationship with money very early on and earning it was always gonna be your friend. Mine too. Yes. So, so like asking for it, not so much, but if you earned it, like, good for you. Um, and I do think that like, if you're a parent that hasn't made it explicit and you don't know how to do it, like they should definitely be calling you because it's, it's never too late, but it's certainly, you know, it's like trying to lose a bunch of weight when you're like 60. It's a lot harder.
Joline Godfrey
It's harder.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
A lot harder. Yes.
Joline Godfrey
And there is one other little— you remind me, I was giving a talk and this one mother said, look, I did it right. I know I did. I told my kid, my kid wanted, I forget, some gaming system. And she said, I didn't want him to have the gaming system, but I said, well, if you earn the money for it, of course you can buy it. And she said, so the kid went out and he earned the money and he bought the gaming system. She said, and now I'm in this place where I don't want him to spend so much time on this gaming system, and yet I set him up. Now what do I do? And your notion, your comment about boundaries, I think is so critical because I had to say to her, you are still the grown-up.
Joline Godfrey
Yeah.
Joline Godfrey
You know, it's— this kid may have gotten entrepreneurial, we reward that, but we don't let them go nuts. Just because they bought it themselves.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. I mean, just because you have it doesn't mean you need to like use it and do it all the time. Um, I mean, and I think this is self-control. I mean, this goes hand in hand with like so many folks in these younger generations have a really hard time, like put down the phone and do your homework, or like come to the dinner table not 2 hours late because you were like messing around on your phone or your iPad. So I, I think there's a lot to be said with just the basic parenting skills that you don't let fall by the wayside just because maybe you're introducing some of these financial parenting skills. I love this. Okay. Let's do a quick speed round. Um, what is the most fun, innovative piece of your new products that you've developed that you're excited about?
Joline Godfrey
Oh my God.
Joline Godfrey
Um, oh, there are so many things. So we've got some new boxes. Um, one of them is the Birthday Box, which is truly fun. It's— I, I say to families, if you do absolutely nothing else, you can do this once a year and it will make a difference. And the Birthday Box works for children as young as 5 and as old as 15. And the entire purpose of it is to take this kid to dinner, go through the stuff that's in the box. Box. And the idea is to introduce the balance between privilege, which is the birthday party, and responsibility, which is you're another year older, now what? And having something that, that, that is that concrete but fun to use on the night before, not the day of, but the night before the birthday, I think is one of the most fun, wonderful tools that we have come up with.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
So I love that. I love that. I love that. What's one lesson that a client has taught you?
Joline Godfrey
Oh, well, certainly the empowered parent, the one who I just spoke about, who said, just because we can doesn't mean we should, is the one that really is connecting with that child and making a difference in their family. So I think the importance of being an empowered parent And that really is— it comes home to me every day.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
What's one piece of advice you'd give to grandparents?
Joline Godfrey
Oh, try not to use the word cute too much. And when you think about the gifts you're going to give, make sure they're functional in a way that is going to build agency, not just dependence.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
What is one financial value that you hope every child has growing up?
Joline Godfrey
Oh, that you, that you really think about moral compass in connection with your capacity to spend. What are your principles? I mean, fundamentally, your principles is what's going to drive your financial behavior.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
Oh, I love that. Joline Godfrey, legend here on the Tamarind Learning podcast. So excited to have you. Thank you so, so much. Um, if our listeners, viewers wanna learn more about Bounce10, where do they go?
Joline Godfrey
Ooh, they go to our website, www.bounce-10.com. And I just wanna say Bounce is for resilience. 10 is for the 10 money skills.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
Thanks for that little clarification too.
Joline Godfrey
Thank you.
Dr. Kirby Rosplock
Well, I, I would encourage you to, you know, look up Joline's website, find her books. She's got wonderful books and reach out and, you know, there's a whole host of things that you've written. So I'm just thrilled that you could be with us here today at the Tamarind Learning podcast. If you like this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with your friends, your peers, and, um, come back and join us again. So great to have you.
Joline Godfrey
Thanks so much, Kirby. It was fun to be here.
