Your Money, Your Rules | Financial Freedom, Money Management, Abundance Mindset, Budgeting, Financial Planning

126 | What If Your Money Healing Journey is the Best Financial Education for Your Kids?

• Erin Gray | Spiritual Wealth Coach, Former Certified Financial Planner and CFO

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Ever feel torn between wanting to teach your kids healthy money habits while still figuring them out yourself? You’re not the only one.

In this episode, I dive into the beautifully messy middle of breaking generational money patterns. What if your healing journey is actually the lesson your kids need most? They’re not looking for perfection—they’re learning by watching how you navigate money, regulate emotions, and grow your wealth consciousness.

Key takeaways:

  • Kids learn more from your energy and actions than your words
  • Regulate your nervous system before money talks
  • Frame mistakes as learning, not shame
  • Discuss purchases in terms of values, not just cost
  • Model putting yourself first, especially for girls
  • Small, honest conversations compound over time

You don’t need to have it all figured out.  Your evolving relationship with money is already the perfect curriculum.

Want to learn more or connect with me?


Step 1: Join my FREE Facebook Community.

Connect, share, and learn how to master your money with other women just like you.

➡️ Join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/941450038160915

Step 2: Grab your FREE Human Design chart

Curious what your Human Design chart reveals about how you're uniquely designed to make aligned financial decisions?

➡️ Get your chart here: https://generatealifewelllived.com/receive-your-human-design-chart

Step 3: Ready to transform your relationship with money and build true financial confidence?

Let’s create a plan that feels aligned, intentional, and empowering—just for you.

➡️ Schedule your free clarity call here (https://tidycal.com/eringray/45-min-call-with-erin)

Money doesn't have to feel overwhelming. Let's create a plan that feels nurturing and custom to you.

From my soul to yours,

Erin

Erin Gray:

I've had some friends and listeners reach out to ask me to do an episode on how do you teach your kids healthy money habits when you still feel like that you are figuring it out yourself. What I consider the in the middle, messy, imperfect and really truly incredibly powerful ways that you can start passing on a new money story, even while you are rewriting your own. And I think this ties so lovely into the generational wealth podcast that I just released, because I truly believe that we are creating a new narrative and relationship with money so that our children and our children's children and generations to come can do that as well. Welcome back to your Money, your Rules, with me, your host, erin Gray. I am so grateful that you are here. This is a place that we talk about all things money, from the logistical, what I call the 3D, the knowledge part, as well as the deeply spiritual parts of money, so that you can create a relationship with money that truly supports you and that you can live a life that you love. So let's start with, first and foremost, that your healing, you going through and working through your money story is actually the teaching you know it's.

Erin Gray:

As parents, you know it's not about having it all figured out right before you start to model it. Kids pick up on your energy, your body language, your willingness to grow, and I think it's really important as parents that we teach this and model this to our children. I think that our children are always watching, and the more that we can be very upfront and honest where we are obviously age appropriate but where they get to see that we are working through stuff as well. We aren't perfect and I think it's important to show our kids this. You know, think about when you were a kid. Did you pay attention to the words that your parents said, or was it more so? Their body language and their tone? You know we read energy as beings right, especially as kids, and then, as we become adults, we have become a little bit more disconnected. But I believe our kids are always watching us. So when they see you learning, when they see you navigating your lessons and learning how to be with money and talking about money in a different way, they learn that money is something that you can evolve with right. It's not something that you have to be perfect at.

Erin Gray:

I think also, it's highly important you know to be honest and to be upfront, like I mentioned, you know in an age appropriate way. If you have a five-year-old, okay, obviously the conversations that you're having you may not even be talking about money, right, but your body language is really important. It's still important when your kids you know 13 or 15, but the conversations that you're having with your children at 13 or 15 are going to be obviously vastly different than if you have a child who's five or eight. So we don't have to come in and dump our money wounds on them and I highly recommend that you don't but you can say things like I'm learning how to be more mindful with our money. It's something that wasn't taught to me and so I'm figuring it out so that I can teach it to you as well. And I think, with anything, if we can make it fun, if we can make it more enjoyable, then our kids are going to naturally I mean, our kids are naturally curious, right? All of kids are naturally curious. So if we can make it more fun and more enjoyable, then we're going to be able to to have a conversation and a relationship with money and with them in a much more easy and free flowing way. I think that this normalizes learning about money as a process, not as a one-time talk or you know it's, you were here and now you're there, right, they get to see you move and evolve through this process and I think that it's so important that our children see us evolving. You know not this perfect parent on a pedestal that a lot of times our kids put us on that where we have it all figured out, it gives them, I think, the permission to do this as well in their own life. When we model for them that you know what, I'm learning this as I move through this, just as they're learning how to interact with their peers and they're having to, you know, apologize for, maybe behavior, or they're learning how to have conversations and repair it's the same thing that we get to model for them so that they see, you know what, nobody's perfect. We're all learning and we're growing.

Erin Gray:

I have intentionally started saying in front of my kid that I did this and I learned this from it. I try to avoid using language like a mistake, because I don't think that there are mistakes. I don't like to use the word I messed up but I do like to say, oh, I did this and this is what I've learned from it, and or you could use language like I chose this and this is what I learned from that. I want her, I want my daughter, to see that learning is taking action and then learning from the decisions that you've made right. It's not from sitting on the sideline thinking about it in our head and never taking action. Our learning is in the doing and then in the contemplation afterwards.

Erin Gray:

The third thing that I would suggest is focus on what you are actively changing. So maybe you're working on spending with more ease or charging more in your business or allocating more money for yourself for fun. So let them see these changes. You know, for example, saying something like you know I'm now spending money just on me. Like I'm learning how to spend money just on me for fun. You know, mom is really good at spending on you guys because I love you guys so much, but mom is now learning how to do that for herself, because I love you guys so much, but mom is now learning how to do that for herself. So enjoy, you know, like I'm enjoying taking time for myself where I get to do something special just for me because I think it's so important.

Erin Gray:

I think whether you have boys or girls or both. But I think, as girls, as women, are receiving muscle is not that built yet, it's not a very strong muscle yet, and I think it's really important that we teach our girls as obviously equally as important as our boys. But you know, for our girls, for us to teach them to how to receive, how to, how to receive pleasure, how to have fun, how to have something just for us. So think about how you have learned to treat yourself from your mom and your grandma. You know, for myself, for my clients, what I am noticing is that our moms and I'm air quoting sacrificed a lot for us, right? They put themselves probably at the end of the line, as did our grandmothers, as did their grandmothers, right?

Erin Gray:

It's a pattern, it's a generational thing, and just like how we have a fork in the road where we get to decide how we want to be with money, I think there's also a fork in the road for us as well, where we get to decide okay, am I going to start putting myself first, so that my daughters, my sons, my children, they get to see how important it is to treat yourself as numero uno, first and foremost. It's like, literally, it's the airline saying right, put your mask on first. You cannot save or help anybody else unless you're doing that first. I think it's important for our children to see that. I think that they really get to see hey, it's important to treat myself with the utmost care, utmost love, utmost support, utmost nourishment, before I start taking care of everybody else. You know you're showing them how to receive with pleasure and with ease and with joy. You know that, I think, is so many of us are working through.

Erin Gray:

And I always think that before you have any conversation, check in with your nervous system, make sure that it's regulated. You know, if you have just finished doing paying bills and maybe you feel stressed, that might not be the best time to then go have a conversation. Go get yourself grounded, go do some tapping, go do some breath work Like, how do you want to regulate your nervous system? Go on a walk. What is it that you want to do to make sure that your nervous system is calm before you have a conversation? And I think that the biggest gift it isn't all of this technical stuff we're so focused on. What is the strategy? But I truly believe it's that spiritual part, it's the 5D, it's modeling that calm, easeful, open conversations not being activated. That's where I think that the gift is that we get to give our children.

Erin Gray:

So if you start to model that, money is natural, it's easy, it's flowing, it's based off of a value exchange, not time for dollars. That money isn't scary or taboo. They're going to start doing that too. They're going to model that as well. And the thing is probably they might already naturally do this, but we have maybe somewhat conditioned them out of that. And if we have, this isn't a place to beat yourself up, it's totally fine. Recognize it. And then I tell my daughter all the time you know what? Mom used to think this way, but I have, you know, expanded my consciousness. I've learned different things. I think about this differently now and I've changed my mind and it's okay for you to do the same as well. So, before you have conversations, think about what exercises do you want to implement so that when you enter this conversation, you're regulated, you're calm, your nervous system is neutral, because they will feel that safety or that lack of safety.

Erin Gray:

And also, I want to point out that, teaching them where money comes from. I think a lot of us have been taught that money comes from our job or it comes from our clients, if we have a business, or it comes from our parents before you know, we are 18, but I believe that money comes from God, whether you want to call it spirit or source or the universe. However you want to think about it. What feels true and connected for you, it's really understanding that God is our source and is our supply. Maybe you've taught them that it comes from you and you feel like you're responsible for giving it to them, but we are and we aren't right. It comes from you and you feel like you're responsible for giving it to them, but we are and we aren't right. Like as parents, we are responsible for taking care of our children and we aren't responsible for every single thing that they want.

Erin Gray:

So you know this is obviously age appropriate conversation, but you know my kid, who is 13 now there are things that she wants that her dad, my husband and I that we don't buy her because I don't see the value in it. It doesn't mean that it's not valuable, it's just not something that we choose to spend and invest our money on. So I never tell her that she can't have something, because I think that that feels very disempowering and I feel like that. We are trying to teach our children that you know the law of attraction and the law of manifestation and you know that we can have anything that we want If that desire is in our heart. A true desire is in our heart, it is already there in the 5d. We just need to manifest it and bring it down to the 3D. So I don't ever tell her that she can't have it, I just tell her how does she want to create value, to receive the money to purchase it? And this, what I think it does, is it has us teaching our kids how money is actually created. It's not through time, it's through value exchange. So she begins and does feel empowered because she thinks about purchasing items differently, and I think it's a beautiful gift that we get to give our kids.

Erin Gray:

You know, for a long time I would probably use the word burdened. I burdened myself thinking that I had to provide everything for her. But as she's gotten older, I've recognized, I've realized, as I've grown, my wealth consciousness, as I've thought about things differently. I don't have to buy her everything and I don't actually think that we do want to be buying our kids everything. I think there is a beauty in what's called the law of gestation. I'm going to have a podcast out on that here in a couple of more episodes, more episodes.

Erin Gray:

But you know, there is beauty in waiting, there is beauty in anticipation, and when our children get everything that they want, in that moment they don't build up that muscle for the anticipation and the gratitude for what they have and for what's coming to us. So I think that you know if it's not something that is truly of value to you and how you want to invest and spend your money, then I think it's important that you get to talk to your children and you get to say how do you want to receive the money? What kind of value do you want to provide to the world in order to receive that? And let them use their creative minds to go to work. Our kids have beautiful imaginations and they will. They'll come up with all kinds of ideas and I think the final thing is just remember that little things over time. You know I always talk about zero to 1%. They compound. You know you're teaching them through dozens of tiny moments.

Erin Gray:

A lot of my clients talk about perfectionism. I probably am a former recovery perfectionist and we think that everything has to be perfect before we start and it doesn't. Our children, uh, and as well as we do right, we learn in these micro moments. It's focusing on those little, tiny micro moments, the 1% that we are doing over and over again to get us to where we're going.

Erin Gray:

So think about when you're at the grocery store, you know, when you swipe your credit card, are you thinking, you know, like one of the books that I've read talks about in God, which you know? Like the money that's printed if you're in the U S, you know it's printed in God. We trust, like that is because we are saying our God source spirit is our supply in God. We trust, you know. Are you thinking thanking God for the money that you have to spend on groceries when you're paying for activities? Are you saying, you know, hey, we're choosing to spend it on this because we value. You know my daughter wants to take piano lessons. This because we value. You know my daughter wants to take piano lessons. We talked to her about like we are loving to spend this money on you because we love you, expanding your creativeness and your gifts that you have, and so just talking to them and they're getting to see how to allocate money based on values, not based on price, and these things. They build emotional literacy around money far more than any like lesson that you're going to sit down and try to teach them or anything that they are going to get in school if they even get it in school Right.

Erin Gray:

So if you think about money from a relationship point of view and how you are caring for it, you get to teach that to your children and I want to offer you that. If you want support around changing your money story so that you can show up fully for yourself and the biggest, brightest, most vibrant version of who you are, so that you can then ultimately show up for your kids, I would love to support you. You can schedule a conversation by clicking the link in the show notes to schedule a call. So, to recap, I want to say that you know what you don't have to be and I'm air quoting fully healed. You know we talk a lot about that in the self-development world. You don't have to be all the way finished, learned all the things, and I really don't think that that ever occurs, right, it's like every new level we just get to experience it at a different place. So your growth is in the learning and the teaching and be open and stay regulated and focus on small, consistent conversations and notice how you feel in your body before you have conversations with your kids.

Erin Gray:

And I want to say that this is how we break cycles, right. We do it in that messy middle what some call the river I don't like this term, river of misery or, you know, in that uncomfortable part I even like to change the language on that right Like we're just doing something different that we haven't done before. It just feels a little bit unnatural right now, but it will feel more natural the more that you do it. But it's real, it's raw, it's human. Our children get to see that and it doesn't have to be perfect. So I'm rooting for you. I believe in you. I think, as all the humans on the planet, but you know, as women, we really have an option and a choice to really change the trajectory of where we are going with our money and what we are teaching our children. So thank you for being here and I will see you in the next episode.