I have work to do. I'm sitting here looking at it right now. But I don't want to do it. It's great, because I can write anything I want about my job without any consequences, because I not only work here, I'm also the president.

He's learning to say no, just like I taught him. At first, he wasn't getting it. It cost him well over five hundred dollars. Now, it's automatic. As soon as the words come out of their mouths, "Daddy, can I have..."

He snaps, "No!"

"Just Say No" is a wonderful policy for kids to say no to drugs, but it's also a great policy for parents to save money. I told him, the next time they say they want something, just say no, don't even think about it. He got better at it after their new bikes broke apart on their first time out and his daughter tried to trick him into paying for all of her friends to go to the pool. He got really good at it.

"No!" Just like that. It works wonders. The kids are learning to be more selective of what they ask for and are forced to find a good reason why they should have certain things. They can be very creative with these reasons sometimes. For instance, his thirteen year old daughter said that it would benefit everyone else for her to have a cellphone, because she would be out and about and it would help everybody to be able to reach her.

I just laughed. I would have told her, "Go ahead and go and when you get there, call us and let us know what you're new number is. We'll call only on Sunday's."

It's a common trap to fall into, a grieved, divorced parent suddenly regains custody and right away wants to restore any lost time with a steady flow of cash and gifts for their children, but there has to be an end to it, unless you are a bottomless pit of equity. There has to come that time when the parent finally and with defeat, has to say no. They feel the guilt from that so heavily it hurts them worse than the child for not receiving that gift. Gifts like these, bought with cash, obtained with heart stains, can leave you not only financially bankrupt eventually, but emotionally spent very quickly.

Just Say No. Then think about all those requests from the children and make a healthy choice for any and all of them later, after you've thought about all the issues and decided what they really do need. You'll come out a hero after all, when you decide to buy him or her a portable CD-Rom player, so you can have your laptop back.


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Next time, huh?

Big T was here 1:30 PM
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