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Prodigal Sons and Material Girls: How Not to Be Your Child's ATM

Average customer rating:

A little dissappointing considering everyone else gave it 5 stars
Teach your kids to Share, Spend and Save
Prodigal Sons and Material Girls...
Really hits the target for money and values with youth
Sage & Insightful Advice for Rasing Responsible Children

Prodigal Sons and Material Girls: How Not to Be Your Child's ATM
Nathan Dungan
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0471250694

Book Description

In today’s society many young people have lost sight of the value of money and seem to believe that money really does "grow on trees." Part expose and part survival guide, Prodigal Sons and Material Girls addresses the nagging issue faced by many parents today – why do their children have such unrealistic expectations about money?

The book is divided into two comprehensive parts. Part I outlines the disturbing facts about America’s possession-crazed youth and the society that has distorted their views. You’ll be introduced to everything from the "three-headed monster"—a high-powered triumvirate of consumer products companies, media conglomerates, and advertising agencies that has tremendous influence over your children—to the distorted view of the American Dream as shaped by principles known as "The Teen Commandments." In learning what you’re up against you can teach financial responsibility from a position of strength.

In Part II, Dungan offers creative and convincing examples on how to leverage his highly successful "Share-Save-Spend" approach to money – critical elements for you to help your children break free from the materialism that has become ingrained in our society. Through insightful anecdotes and simple exercises, you will learn how to:

Talk to your children about money
Understand the difference between financial wants and needs
Increase the probability of your children having a prosperous life
Raise your children’s marketing IQ
Maintain healthy financial boundaries
Set a healthy example for your children to follow

The "Share–Save–Spend" methodology will help your children establish healthy financial habits and will undoubtedly become their foundation for making a lifetime of responsible financial decisions.

Nathan Dungan is an innovative leader in the financial services industry. Over the past 15 years, he has been a top-performing financial advisor outside of Philadelphia, PA and most recently served as Vice President of Marketing for Lutheran Brotherhood (now Thrivent Financial for Lutherans), a $57 billion member-owned financial services company with nearly 3 million members. Dungan is a frequent speaker and workshop leader and has been widely quoted on this subject in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and has appeared on CNN and PBS.

Customer Reviews:

A little dissappointing considering everyone else gave it 5 stars.......2005-11-15

While Nathan Dungan makes a good case that our culture is becoming more and more materialistic and there is more and more pressure on kids to conspicuously consume, I think that he spends too much time making the case. I bought the book precisely because I was concerned about instilling sound financial values in my own children, so I think he didn't need to spend well over half the book convincing me that it's something to be concerned about.

His share/save/spend philosophy is a good one from a 50,000 foot view, but I would have appreciated more concrete actionable plans. Don't get me wrong, there are specific suggestions and exercises (some of which I plan on impleenting), and discussion topics for dialogs with your kids, just not to the level I was expecting. There are also plenty of anecdotes about what other families have done, both good and bad, but I'm always a little uncomfortable with "advice by anecdote" vs. advice by research. There are plenty of citations, and I may be wrong, but it seemed to me that most of the citations regarded the impact of our materialistic society and the current state of affairs with young people getting into financial trouble, rather than studies regarding specific advice and how kids react to the peer pressure and financial environment. Also, a lot was said about peer pressure, and a lot was said about not caving in to it, but not a lot was said about helping kids cope with it in their daily lives.

In the end, I suppose this is a very difficult subject to write about. Every family situation is different, with different levels of income and affluence. Even if I can afford to buy certain things for my kids, where do I draw the line? The world is certainly different than the world I grew up in, but I think it's unrealistic to say "this was how it is when I grew up, so you should live in that world too.

Teach your kids to Share, Spend and Save.......2004-04-16

Nathan Dungan's philosophy for teaching children to be responsible with money has its roots in a church program he designed at the behest of a friend. Dumbfounded that the kids in Sunday School hadn't thought about the possibility that money could be shared, he developed an approach to financial literacy focused on Sharing, Spending and Saving.

Many parents will identify with the profiles and stories of kids who ask for and are given too much. These same parents will likely be depressed by the evidence Dungan presents surrounding the influence of advertising, promotion and media on kids' inability to distinguish between wants and needs. Dungan offers solutions to these problems, providing parents with the ammunition to stop the madness and, not only to teach, but to lead by example.

Dungan acknowledges that its difficult for any parent to run counter to prevailing cultural imperatives to buy more, more, MORE. The tools he offers in this book should help make the job much easier for the committed parent.

Prodigal Sons and Material Girls..........2003-09-06

I just finished reading the book, "Prodigal Sons and Material Girls: How Not to Be Your Child's ATM..." I was very impressed with Nathan Dugan's share-save-spend strategy, similar to what I was raised on--and eventually converted my husband to. Mr. Dugan's strategy combines spiritual and practical values into an easy to follow formula. Another aspect that I was impressed with was that Mr. Dugan also emphasizes understanding who you are and where you come from, in relation to your financial mindset--something that leads to our spending habits. I am trying to teach good financial habits to my three young children. When they come shopping with me we talk about the things that our family "needs" versus our "wants." I firmly believe in investing in oneself by saving money, instead of satisfying immediate wants. I appreciated Mr. Dugan's philosophy of grouping values and financial habits together, something I think people in financial straits don't realize. I've had extended family members approach me from time to time, asking for help in teaching them how to budget, etc. This book is a great reference that I will recommend to those who are struggling and to those who aren't, but need reaffirmation.

Really hits the target for money and values with youth.......2003-08-16

The book opened my eyes to the some of the psychological manipulations that advertising and marketing companies use to influence children. The strategies Mr. Dungan suggests for instilling traditional values like donating and saving money as well as reasonable spending can help children learn how to be successful financially in adult life.
As a professional financial adviser and I see many financially successful people. In virtually every person that has accumulated substantial wealth I find several consistent attitudes and habits. These attitudes and habits for success are rarely found in today's youth. If this materialism doesn't change the future will not be as bright as we would want for them. I have been searching for resources that will help me teach young people in my community the value of money and how they can make choices which will provide long term happiness and security and at the same time live a life of joy and fulfillment today. Mr. Dungan's research and suggested strategies do just that.
This book has become the centerpiece of my community education effort.

Sage & Insightful Advice for Rasing Responsible Children.......2003-06-15

A brilliant review of what we/society have done to "drug" our children in a spending stupor and what we need to do to stem this cultural tide and raise responsible & healthy children when it comes to managing money/spending.

Let me be the first to say I too am part of the problem; I've indulged my child and mis-taught my son with illusions that spending is happiness. Mr. Dugan describes how I/culture are misleading our children, if not selling them out, for the sake of marketing gain: business profit over our children's happiness. We're allowing business advertising to be the stewards of our children's spending/financial health. Mr. Dungan shows us how to take back that stewardship and how not to abdicate our child-rearing responsibility (about spending) and what to do to raise wise-spending young adults.

I have a few years to try to undo whatever harm I may have wrought. Of course, it's hard to rectify a bad habit once started, so I envy those of you who get to Nathan's book early. For those of us who can't, I advise we buy a copy for each child, tell them upfront what we intend to do & why, and then go about the task of raising spending responsible children, and in doing so, healthier, happier young people.

Thank you Mr. Dungan for writing such a sage, concise prescription for our self-inflicted woes: Share, Save, Spend.

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