The Opposite of Spoiled

Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

By: Ron Lieber

Narrated by: Ron Lieber

Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

We may not realize it, but children are hyperaware of money. They have scores of questions about its nuances that parents often don't answer, or know how to answer well. But for Ron Lieber, a personal finance columnist and father, good parenting means talking about money with our kids much more often. When parents avoid these conversations, they lose a tremendous opportunity—not just to model important financial behaviors, but also to imprint lessons about what their family cares about most.

Written in a warm, accessible voice, grounded in real-world stories from families with a range of incomes, The Opposite of Spoiled is a practical guidebook for parents that is rooted in timeless values. Lieber covers all the basics: the best ways to handle the tooth fairy, allowance, chores, charity, savings, birthdays, holidays, cell phones, splurging, clothing, cars, part-time jobs, and college tuition. But he also identifies a set of traits and virtues—like modesty, patience, generosity, and perspective—that parents hope their young adults will carry with them out into the world.

In The Opposite of Spoiled, Ron Lieber delivers a taboo-shattering manifesto that will help every parent embrace the connection between money and values to help them raise young adults who are grounded, unmaterialistic, and financially wise beyond their years.

©2015 Ron Lieber (P)2015 HarperCollins Publishers

good variety of situations and suggestions

loved this book. I am a new mom. I was not into allowance and my husband is. I never received an allowance and have worked for all my income. my husband argued his way into an allowance with his parents. I am ok with $, my husband is terrible. this book opened my eyes to many new ideas. I am now open for discussion about allowance with my husband. We hope that our child will learn to be a responsible adult. Want to teach him good monetary and ethical values.

I have already starting implementing these techniques with my kids and they work!

A must-read book for families. I came home every day after listening to the book on my commute and discussed the principles and ideas with my wife. We have already starting implementing them with our two young children and we can see the benefits already.

One thing to note: there are so many good reference materials that it almost makes more sense to have this in hard copy, even if you rarely read hard copy books. I’ll probably buy it just to have the copy.

Great advice

This book was great advice for teaching our kids a about money. Start today. Great insight and perspectives

Eye opening and well written!

As a parent and step parent to 5 kids, this book reaffirmed how I feel kids should be raised with regard to money. We are in the adult-making business and this is an excellent guide to doing it right!

Good habits and good parenting

Even more thorough, researched and real world in easy to understand teaching than I had hoped. Thanks for the tools!

Good info

Good information. Brought up several interesting discussions with my husband about our unborn child. Seemed to be well researched.

Good listen but not too much in depth information

The narrator was the author and the reading was mostly fluid. The beginning and middle of the book seemed on target and informative but strayed at the end with too much on giving and charities. For me, I think the book was worth the audible credit but I would not pay cash for it.

This book does provide many suggestions for answering common kids question concerning money so it accomplishes what it says it does.

I will probably give this a second listen to remember the responses better.

A great listen for all parents

This book really helped our thinking about money and how we deal with it with our kids.

Great book to read and re-read as kids grow

All parents should read or listen to this every few years. It has many broad conceptual points as well as specific "how to" examples to help parents raise good children.

Excellent advice and suggestions

Details on the best way to offer income to children to show how to be responsible with it.