A book can help with
For the child who’s noticed that other families have more.
Children notice money long before we tell them anything about it. They notice the trainers everyone else has, the trips they don’t go on, the worry in a parent’s voice over the post. And because it’s an awkward subject, they often carry that noticing quietly and privately.
Books help in two directions. They let a child in a stretched household see a family like theirs on the page, treated with dignity rather than pity, and they show any child that what makes a life good has very little to do with what’s in the bank. Both are worth reading, whichever situation you’re in.
Here’s what I’d reach for. Find your child’s age and start there.
Wanting and waiting
At this age it’s about wanting things, waiting for them, and noticing what you already have.
After a fire takes everything, a girl, her mother and her grandmother save coins in a big jar until they can buy one comfortable armchair. It treats a family with very little with enormous warmth and dignity, and the saving-up is a lesson in itself. A deserved classic, and moving every time.
or on Bookshop.org
CJ wishes his family had a car like his friends, and his grandmother shows him, stop by stop, the richness in what they do have. It’s a beautiful answer to the child who’s comparing, and it never talks down about being poor. An award-winner, and a joy to read aloud.
or on Bookshop.org
Understanding it
Older children can take a fuller story about a family under real financial pressure, and see their own life reflected honestly.
Mia runs the front desk of a motel while her immigrant parents clean the rooms, and money is desperately tight throughout. Drawn from the author’s own childhood, it’s warm and brave and refuses to make poverty either shameful or romantic. Wonderful for a child whose family is stretched, and eye-opening for one whose isn’t.
or on Bookshop.org
Jackson’s family has been here before, selling their things and facing life in a van, and this time he’s old enough to feel the shame of it and to wish his parents would just tell him the truth. His old imaginary friend, a large and very opinionated cat called Crenshaw, turns up again to help him through. Applegate is honest about hunger and eviction without ever tipping into hopelessness, which is a hard thing to manage. A kind, clear-eyed book for a child whose family is going without and being asked not to talk about it.
or on Bookshop.org
How it actually works
By eleven a child is starting to earn a bit, spend a bit and want things that cost real money, and to notice what their family can and cannot afford. Each of these treats them as perfectly capable of understanding the machinery.
A graphic-style guide to where money comes from and what it does, taking in banks, borrowing, tax, inflation and what actually happened in 2008. Far more picture than text. Good for the child who has started asking questions you would rather not answer off the top of your head.
or on Bookshop.org
The practical companion to the above: budgeting, shopping sensibly, phone contracts, and further off, student loans and mortgages. Twenty-two short chapters, so it is a dip-in book rather than a read-through. Pitched slightly older, which most eleven and twelve year olds rather like.
or on Bookshop.org
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Something to do together
A simple saving-up page for something a child is working towards, and a chat starter about wants and needs. I’m making it now, and it will live here soon.
Children cope better with a straight answer than with an anxious silence. ‘We can’t afford that at the moment’ is a perfectly good sentence, and far less frightening than sensing worry and being told everything’s fine.
So be honest at a level that fits their age, keep the grown-up worry between grown-ups, and make sure they know it isn’t their job to fix. And notice out loud the good things that cost nothing, since that’s a habit worth more than any amount of pocket money.
For you, the grown-up
There’s a companion page for grown-ups over on the main Book Quote Therapy library, with books for adults under financial strain.
Read the grown-up version →These pages are written for the grown-ups looking after a child: parents, teachers and carers. A good book can sit beside a worried child, though it never stands in for a real conversation, or for proper support when something feels too big to carry alone.