Value for Your Money

How Children Use Money

Children, like adults, usually have many opportunities for spending money. The trick, of course, is to spend money wisely on the goods and services that will help them reach their goals.

Children need experiences that will teach them consumer skills, such as how to shop, what features to look for, how to get information on a product, how to complain and how to make decisions about what to buy and when to buy it.

Some guides for helping children spend their money are given below. You may think of others that are appropriate for your family and the other children with whom you interact.

Help children set limits on how much they should spend. Do this by asking children to name or list their “needs” as they see them and help them sort these “needs” into most important and least important.

Teach children buying skills by comparing prices and quality and discussing the advantages and disadvantages of buying items on sale. Remember that you are a role model, so use good shopping habits for family, household and children's personal expenditures.

Help children accept responsibility for their decisions when spending money. They may need your advice and encouragement to weigh the alternatives to make the best decision.

Shop by phone, catalogs and fliers before going out to buy. This can help you save time and energy.

Hang a family “wanted” list of items, prices and dates on your refrigerator. If you still want the items in three months, negotiate how to save for them.

Other Activities -- Decision-making and Consumer Skills
Show children where they can find information on consumer goods before buying them: labels, hang tags, consumer publications, etc.

Help children write a letter of complaint if an item is defective.

If you have been a victim of fraudulent misrepresentation, you can file a consumer complaint with the North Dakota attorney general’s Consumer Protection and Antitrust Division. Explain the situation to your children and involve them in filling out the complaint form.

FICO Score Pie Chart

FICO scores are calculated from a lot of different credit data in your credit report. The percentages in the chart reflect how important each of the categories is in determining your score. These percentages are based on the importance of the five categories for the general population. For particular groups - for example, people who have not been using credit long - the importance of these categories may be somewhat different.

Brain-based Learning

Definition

This learning theory is based on the structure and function of the brain. As long as the brain is not prohibited from fulfilling its normal processes, learning will occur.

DiscussionPeople often say that everyone can learn. Yet the reality is that everyone does learn. Every person is born with a brain that functions as an immensely powerful processor.

Traditional schooling, however, often inhibits learning by discouraging, ignoring, or punishing the brain's natural learning processes.

The core principles of brain-based learning state that:

1. The brain is a parallel processor, meaning it can perform several activities at once, like tasting and smelling.
2. Learning engages the whole physiology.
3. The search for meaning is innate.
4. The search for meaning comes through patterning.
5. Emotions are critical to patterning.
6. The brain processes wholes and parts simultaneously.
7. Learning involves both focused attention and peripheral perception.
8. Learning involves both conscious and unconscious processes.
9. We have two types of memory: spatial and rote.
10. We understand best when facts are embedded in natural, spatial memory.
11. Learning is enhanced by challenge and inhibited by threat.
12. Each brain is unique.

The three instructional techniques associated with brain-based learning are:

1. Orchestrated immersion--Creating learning environments that fully immerse students in an educational experience

2. Relaxed alertness--Trying to eliminate fear in learners, while maintaining a highly challenging environment

3. Active processing--Allowing the learner to consolidate and internalize information by actively processing it.

More on this story at http://brainbaselearning.blogspot.com/