Money can be a very tough subject for you and your kids, but you're probably doing something right if you're talking about it with them at all.

Nathan Dungan can help you start your kids on the right track.

Dungan is an author, award-winning speaker and national expert on family finances and the effects of mass marketing on young people.

A top-performing financial adviser and vice president of marketing for a Fortune 500 financial services company, he founded Share-Save-Spend LLC, an organization that helps people of all ages develop and maintain healthy financial habits.

Dungan offers insight drawn from his highly successful Share-Save-Spend approach to money. "Having a balanced approach to financial matters means aligning what you care about with how you use your money. While this sounds simple enough, it becomes seriously complicated by the compounding pressure on young people to spend, spend, spend, and to reach for an upscale lifestyle," Dungan said.

Each week, Dungan will offer advice on how parents can create financial values in their children.

Dungan will offer a Share-Save-Spend tip, a question to prompt money discussions with your children, and a gotta-have-it-now fact that illustrates the incredible influence mass marketing has on our children.

In the United States today, kids are overwhelmed with messages to spend, spend, spend. According to American Demographics magazine, by the time a young person reaches the age of 21 they will have been the recipient of 23 million ad impressions, or roughly 3,000 a day.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that one of the fastest growing age groups filing for bankruptcy is young people under age 25. And as most adults know, with increased debt often comes increased stress.

A powerful antidote to the overwhelming number of spend messages is to encourage your child to share their money and their time with a cause they care about.

Psychologists Allan Luks and Howard Andrews collected surveys from more than 3,000 student volunteers and found that their “helper’s high” was followed by a second stage called the “healthy helper syndrome”. They defined this stage as a “longer-lasting sense of calm and heightened emotional well-being -- that is a key to happiness and optimism and a way to combat feelings of helplessness and depression.”

What are some ideas for sharing time and money as a family?

It might be a good idea to discuss -- as a family -- causes you would like to support. Have your children think about who could use their help -- be it time or money. Be prepared to offer a few suggestions. And be prepared to follow through on the promise of support.

The Money Talks question is designed to build on the Share-Save-Spend tip for the week and can be used as a springboard for additional conversations with family and friends.

Spending by and for kids 8-18 on products used in their bedrooms is estimated at $386 per child per year, for a total of $17 billion annually in the United States, according to the WonderGroup.

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