Breaking the news about being broke - snippets of survival
One of the most distressing situations a family could face is to be financially broke. With children's tuition bills, food and household expenses to pay, a negative cash position can bring disaster. Easily. Family members find themselves vulnerable to quick tempers, emotional outbursts and sometimes bouts of depression during times like this. Moments spent instead to find solutions to the problem turn out to be occasions of accusation and finger pointing. Volatile, like a ticking bomb. Many years back my family faced a similar problem. To ease the burden, I decided to tell my children the real score. I thought they were old enough to understand what we were going through. After all, nothing can beat being straightforward. To my mind, this would be the ultimate test for my children's maturity and lessons learned from what I had always tried to teach them: that in times of adversity, it is how you cope with the situation that will define the result that you want. Tellin