Belief Systems

As the founder of Moola Monsters, I am always seeking to inspire parents to teach their children. I want to step back a second to let all of the parents out there know that I can empathize with the struggles we face teaching our children. Time, energy and patience can seem few and far between at times. As parents we can let the stress of guilt creep into our lives. This can be hard, so I want to discuss a more fundamental aspect of parenting... Belief Systems.

Speaking with founder of "Consider the Ant Ministries" this morning reminded me about the importance of belief systems in our motivation to rise above the mundane regarding any goal. While working with the Schuster Center for Professional Development I had a client ask me if I could help him. I responded that I didn't know if I could help him and insistently he told me of course you know. I then explained that I knew statistically what we are able to do for our students on average, but that was not what was in question. I didn't know if he really wanted help or not. I didn't know enough about his belief systems regarding himself, his situation, his business, or our organization. You can have the greatest coaches in the world, but unless you want help, are willing to do the work, and believe that you can achieve better for your life all the coaching in the world will not matter. It is the belief systems of an individual that will determine the success of any given desire to grow.

It is difficult to take a hard look at ourselves and truly evaluate our belief systems about certain areas of our life. This can be especially true when it comes to issues of relationships, faith, money, and other deeply personal aspects of our lives. So let me ask you, what is your belief system about your children's education? What is your belief system about their future? Is it the school's responsibility? Is it the church's? Is it your wife's or your husband's? Is their education subject to just living life and experiencing the world as it comes to them? Maybe it is a little bit of all of these things. Only you and God truly know your belief system regarding your children's future.

Whatever, your belief system is it will play an important role in shaping your kid's future. In fact, many of their belief systems will come directly from you. Yes, it is a huge responsibility when you consider the magnitude of the influence we have over our children's future. I want to ask a favor of you. Will you please set aside some time in your day to embrace that responsibility and prayerfully consider and understand your belief system regarding parenting? Look at it in detail. Where does your responsibility end and the worlds influence begin. What do you want for them and why do you want it? The answers to these questions will direct the action you choose for your children. How you connect with your children regarding everything from discipline, nutrition, exercise, money, love, values, faith and all other areas of education will be motivated by your parenting belief systems.

Your children need you.

Sincerely,

Grant Magers

CEO

Moola Monsters, LLC

www.moolamonsters.com

A Heavenly Fathers Day ~ Inspired by Dad

Fathers Day... As a father of 2 great boys I really enjoy fathers day. It is not a day that sends me to the golf course or sends me fishing. It is a day that sends me to my family. It focuses me on the gifts God has given me, my wife and those two wonderful boys. Whom without I could not bear the title father.

Fathers Day may not represent great moments for some. Some fathers were not around for their children. I have friends out there, whose dads were alcoholics, abusive, verbally an physically, and much worse. I have friends who have not been able to become dads and fathers day represents a hole in their life. I am writing this blog to hopefully bring a sense of peace to those with loss or pain on fathers day and to encourage all men in their roles as fathers, uncles, grand-dads, god-parents, and friends to children.

I grew up with a dad who is truly inspiring. I was adopted as an infant and I believe my parents were divinely selected for me. At a very early age dad established in me a moral compass based on God's direction. If I wanted to do something that he may disagree with (i.e. watch a TV program, stay up late, etc) he would always give me the choice. "Grant you can... if you think that is what God wants you to do." He always placed me in a moral dialogue with God. He just had a good way of phrasing things in a way that forced me to consider more than myself.

Don't get me wrong, I had plenty to cry about growing up. What I mean is, I was crying when the black belt took to my backside for making poor choices. I understood the consequences of my choices. Dad understood the meaning of "spare the rod spoil the child" and I am so thankful for his wisdom today. In my life today when faced with tough decisions I consider God and His will for my life and I consider the social consequences of my actions.

Dad is also the most giving man I have ever met. I have seen him feed the hungry and help stranded strangers. He let a friend live with our family until the man could back on his feet. He genuinely loves so deeply that he struggles with seeing anyone go without. However, he is not blind to an individuals laziness. He will not tolerate unjust behavior towards others. He will not stand by and watch someone take advantage of others for self gain.

As a young man I struggled to appropriately express the same moral fiber with grace. I desired to be just and loving in my heart, but there was often poor execution in my action. He used to try and temper my exuberance, but as a brash young man I was "in control". Looking back over my life, it has taken some serious bumps and bruises to understand that grace is a powerful way to reach others. Dad understood this and tried to teach me the best that he could. I think he did a great job.

So today on fathers day as I look at my boys I have one goal, and that is to be half the man to them that my father was to me. To do that it requires the greatest Father of all... my Heavenly Father. The One who knows no limits to grace. The One who died for me, my dad, and all of us. He died for those whose dads were not around and those who feel pain on fathers day. All of us celebrate Fathers Day every day. We celebrate it when we kneel at our beds or bow our heads for prayer. We celebrate it when we help a stranger or feed the hungry.

We celebrate our Heavenly Father when we teach our children about the life He has called us all to live. My dad taught me all the time, the very best he knew how. In doing so he celebrated the Heavenly Father. We too can celebrate our Heavenly Father every day.

Make every day Heavenly Fathers Day... teach your children.

Sincerely,

Grant Magers

CEO

Moola Monsters, LLC

www.moolamonsters.com

Advertising and Your Kids

"Advertising is a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume more of a particular brand of product or service." ~ Wikipedia

Advertising is clearly a necessary part of business. It is not inherently a bad thing. We all participate in advertising one way or another. For some of us advertising is our profession, and it is our job to persuade potential customers. For others, like myself, I have to advertise to make others aware of our company. Sometimes advertising is very subtle like the hats I wear with other company logos on them. Other times, like on television or billboard ads, it can be very direct. In fact advertising is often it's own form of entertainment. We all look forward to the Super Bowl ads. Who can forget our three favorite frogs or the rancher herding cats.

There is absolutely no doubt advertising is effective. Companies spend millions upon millions of dollars and go as far as to employ psychologists to study the best ways to persuade us. Logos and jingles are all designed to make us remember companies and the great things about the products they are selling. I have even started to notice that department stores all have a similar smell now. Have you noticed that? The smell almost puts you in a buying mood. The power of advertising is amazing.

Have you given any thought to advertising and it's impact on your children? This was a scary and sobering question for me the first time I considered it. As am writing my book, “Not My Kids©”, I became curious to just how many commercials were impacting my children per hour of television. I was absolutely stunned to see over 60 commercials in an hour. This wasn't the worst part. It was the message in the commercials that were horrifying. The commercials were fast paced with lots of color and action. They were clearly designed to engage kids. The horrifying part was the relationship between parents and children in these commercials. Parents were often made to look, out of touch, dumb and not cool. Teachers were made to look weird and boring. The kids who were enjoying the products were made out to have superior wisdom than the adults in their lives. The only time an adult was made to be cool was if the adult was advocating the product.

This kind of advertising is hitting our kids at an average pace of 60+ commercials per hour of TV. Is there any wonder that children are growing up with a lack of respect for adults. Is it any wonder that they are growing up to always desire the latest and greatest gadget with little self-control. Our children are being programmed to be consumers. You may have no problem with the commercials on television, PDAs, or computers and their messages to your children. I don't know. What I do know is without parents standing up for their children's education and influence, the advertising companies of the world will be happy to do it for you.

I do not want to over criticize the advertising industry as a whole. There are many quality creative ads that I enjoy. We all must market our products and services. My own company has a website and promotional material. But as parents we need to be sure that the messages reaching our children are quality messages. As companies, we can advertise in a manner that represents our products well, engages our customer, and is still respectful to others. As parents we can teach our children the principles they will need to make good sound decisions regardless of the commercial influence. Stand up for your little ones. Teach them the the 5 rules of money for kids.

We have to learn from our past and seize the opportunity of our future, which is our children.

Sincerely,

Grant Magers

CEO

Moola Monsters, LLC

www.moolamonsters.com

What is the world coming to...

What is the world coming to when we need to take psychological profiles in order to determine if we should get married to another person? I actually heard this on a christian radio station this morning. I can't believe they suggested that we should take psychological personality profile to determine if we should marry another person.

What do you think Jesus would say to this suggestion? Can't you see the Lord at the wedding feast, saying to the bride and groom, did you take a psych profile before marrying each other? I know, I know, "we live in different times now." - "Things are different than they were 2000 years ago." I have a news flash for all of us, human nature is not different. We still deal with greed, anger, jealousy, boredom, lust, and other issues the same now as back then. So what is the difference?

The difference is we lack delayed gratification. We lack taking responsibility for our actions. We do not need psychological profiles, we need to be adults, not adolescents in adult bodies. We need to recognize that love means more than I feel good about my situation. We need to raise our children in a manner that teaches them these principles with our actions more than our words.

I can guarantee you that you can score the highest level of compatibility on a personality profile with each other, and still find that as life gets tough easy way are still appealing. If you choose that route, what does that teach your children? I know there are circumstances that may require one party of a relationship to leave sometimes. I am saying that personality profiles are not the preventative answer. A healthy understanding of love in Christ is the answer. Patience, kindness, the fruits of the Spirit are what make individuals ready for marriage. They are also the things that sustain a couple in their marriage 30+ years later.

Teach your children by your actions. Not only in money, but in your marriage, in the choices you make for your life.

Sincerely,

Grant Magers

CEO

Moola Monsters, LLC

www.moolamonsters.com

Using the Moola Monster System

I try not use the blog to purely self promote Moola Monsters' products. However, tonight I want to share some tips on how to best implement the system effectively for your family. We now have families using Moola Monsters in seven states, and we have had an overwhelming number of success stories. However, we have also had a lot of questions about how to best use the system. As the founder of the company it is pretty easy for me to make assumptions about certain aspects of the system. This is why I want to thank each and every one of you who are asking questions. By asking questions you give us the opportunity to better ourselves and hopefully be a part positively influencing the future through your children. If for some reason I do not address your question in this blog, please email me at moolamonsters@cox.net.

The concept of Moola Monsters is to introduce an economic system for children into the home. The main reason kids today get all the way into college with little understanding of money is because over the years the role of children as changed in the home (read about in previous posts). In order for any economic system to function the currency has to have some sort of understood value to the individual. This occurs in two ways in the Moola Monsters system. 1) The children are drawn to the cards because they like the characters. This creates an instant intrinsic value to the cards themselves. 2) The cards have to represent something more than just the characters themselves for it to have a lasting impact. The cards need to represent opportunities that your kids desire. (e.g. an opportunity to play a game console for an hour, an opportunity to buy a new toy, and opportunity to have some candy). This creates a "market need" to earn cards. This exactly how life works. When is the last time you played golf for free? When is the last time you picked up a new car for free? Our currency in life represents opportunities. Sometimes those opportunities are needs and sometimes they are wants, but they are opportunities none-the-less.

The cards themselves have no designated dollar amount value. Children will learn how to make change in school. What we are teaching them are principles of money and principles of behavior. These principles will last with them their entire lives. (I'll speak to the principles in a minute.) What's great is as parents you can steer the behavior by placing values on the opportunity themselves. If you feel that is is very important for your children to stay clear of junk food then place a higher card value on the junk food. If you feel that to much television is not a good thing then place a high card value on television time (e.g. 10 cards per hour). I have seen my kids pass up junk food for bananas and apples because they did not want to spend there cards on junk food. 

Value can also be placed on the correctional aspect of behavior. For example, if a child back talks an adult it cost my kids 5 cards. The loss of the cards hurts, because they like their characters, but what they ultimately learn is it limits their opportunities to do things they enjoy or need. This is the same in the real world. If you spend $200 on a speeding ticket then that is less money for opportunities that we need or want. This forces them to learn to think before they act, because there is a consequence for their actions. Once I caught the boys in a white lie. It cost them all their cards. It not only got their attention that day, but they were reminded of their mistake each time they wanted to something for a couple of weeks until their account was rebuilt. I treated them with kindness and in love, but they were reminded that lying is never a good choice.

You may want to write out your values together as parents for your children. I recommend starting with 3 or 4 ways to earn cards and 3 or 4 opportunities to spend cards. You can print out a sample on our website (www.moolamonsters.com). As your children are earning cards they will learn quickly how it applies to opportunities. They will look for new ways to earn on their own (feeding the pets, making their beds, cleaning their toys, etc.) You will want to designate ways for them to earn cards as well (there is a printable example on the website).

 To get them to understand the value of saving, bankrupt your kids. Let them spend to their hearts delight. In fact raise the rates along the way. Eventually they will be broke. When they come to you with a request and they have no cards left they will quickly realize the need to consider their spending. Ask them which rule of money they violated (see the five rules of money on the website). This is a perfect opportunity to introduce the five rules. 

Your kids are going to make mistakes along the way. this is good, It is how they are going to learn. It is your job to make sure they don't miss the opportunity to learn. When they do something good or make a mistake have them relate it to one of the five rules. This will teach them larger principles with the actions they are taking. They will even be able to begin to relate the five rules to real family finance situations. Sometimes more than one rule applies so teach them the all the rules that apply. Our goal here is to get to the deeper principles that are going to foster better decision making as adults.

IF you have questions about savings, investing, or tithing, feel free to email me at moolamonsters@cox.net. I will be more than happy to answer any questions you have. I want to thank you for standing up for your children. You have looked at the current economic pain in the world and said "Not My Kids". You should be commended as parents. Remember it is about progress not perfection. 

Thanks,

Grant Magers

CEO

Moola Monsters

www.moolamonsters.com