A Fiscal Lesson for the Ages

That's certainly true of Kamar.

Reddick-Morgan tried to draw out why he was so afraid. He had been shopping with her and could recite to the penny the rising grocery bills. He worried when she complained about rising gas prices. He told her that he was scared everyone would run out of money, then no one would have food.

Kamar reasoned that they could always move in with their grandmother in Georgia, a child of the atomic age who keeps a basement stocked with food. And if they needed money, he said, he could sell his iPod: "I could take all the songs off and erase my name."

Reddick-Morgan shook her head. "I had no idea they were thinking like this," she said.

Greenspan, author of "The Secure Child," said that at times like these, parents need to make more time to hang out with their children. They need to ask their children how much they know about what's going on, then answer questions in an age-appropriate way. They need to find ways for their children to help others. "If a child is active in helping make things better, there's less worry," Greenspan said.

So Reddick-Morgan has explained subprime loans and the foreclosures at the root of the crisis -- the children know at least three neighbors who have moved after losing their homes. But she does not tell them that she was so worried about her 401(k) a few years ago that she withdrew the money and put it in an ING savings account. Working for a nonprofit group, she sometimes fears that the grant funding her position might not come through. But that, too, is not something she shares: "That's something no child needs to worry about."

No matter the financial situation, never lie to children, said Jerilyn Ross, director of the Ross Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders in Washington. One patient had just lost her job but was too ashamed to tell her two teenage daughters. So when one daughter kept bugging her to buy new clothes and she refused, the girl felt angry and thought her mother was being unreasonable. "When the mom finally sat down and told her she couldn't afford the clothes because she'd lost her job, the daughter felt guilty, then wanted to help the mother," Ross said.

Shawn McLaughlin, who runs a small investment firm in Alexandria, said the crisis has kept him at work until 10 most nights and away from his four children, ages 2 to 8. "They're listening when I listen to the news, and they ask what does it mean. I use it as a chance to explain that this was all about greed," he said. "They're picking up on some of the despair. But I also say that better days are ahead. I talk about how we've been tested before as a country. I explain about Pearl Harbor and how we always come out the other end far stronger and far wiser."

Likewise, Reddick-Morgan has used the crisis to reinforce the importance of faith, family and education.

She sat with her children on a recent balmy evening, Kaise clutching her Clifford the Big Red Dog pillow and wrapped in a Winnie the Pooh blanket. "The only thing that matters is who you are and how you treat people," she told them. "Money. All these material things. You can't take it with you. You have to believe that no matter what happens, God is going to take care of us."

Because, she thinks, what else do you have?