Paying down his debt, my son learned that a credit limit and making minimum payments feels like wearing cement shoes in a pit of quicksand. Still occasionally he’d bring out the card for new purchases, and I’d pull out my book. “Awwww, Mom, can’t you let me put it on credit without writing it down?”

If I wanted to raise children who felt like…no, who knew they could take on the world and win, I had to stop giving them messages that diminished them and instead give ones that made them feel significant.