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.

Dungan offers 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.

For the past 15 years, I have been talking with thousands of families about money and the role it plays in their lives. To date, not one parent has ever told me that it was their goal to raise a selfish, narcissistic child.

However, more and more parents are growing concerned about the “gotta-have-it-now” mentality that is overwhelming their children at every turn. After all, it doesn’t take a marketing genius to look around and realize that our culture is working overtime to addict kids to spending.

So what’s a family to do? Increasingly, parents are turning to philanthropy (aka sharing) as a powerful antidote to the hyper-consumer culture that is now our reality.

Across America families are helping their children share their time and money with causes they care about. Why? To instill a sense of gratitude and appreciation for the things they already have. And to help teach them about the many needs of the world.

Every week I hear from more and more families who tell me how their kids now look forward to sharing their resources.

So this holiday season think about how you (and others in your family) can change up the “gotta-have-it-now” rhythm by shifting your child’s attention to sharing. If we all do our part to nurture the spirit of generosity in young people their world, our world and the future will be much, much brighter!

What are some specific things you can do to change up the “gotta-have-it now” mentality in your home?

Consider asking for suggestions from your kids. And if that doesn’t work, schedule a “sharing” activity for the family. One tip: do a before-and-after check-in to gauge their interest. You'll find that 99.9 percent of the time they will be much more excited after a volunteer activity than before.

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.

Can you guess the top five spending holidays? According to the National Retail Federation, they are: Winter holidays ($220 billion), Valentine's Day ($13 billion), Easter ($10.5 billion), Mother's Day ($10.4 billion), and Father's Day ($8 billion).

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