According to Joyce Marter of Psychology Today, children develop underlying beliefs about money based on early life events. Unfortunately, these beliefs, or “money scripts” as many experts call them, usually aren’t entirely accurate — yet children follow them into adulthood and often pass them down to their own kids too. Marter also says that children typically develop money scripts in one of four areas: avoidance, worship, status, and vigilance. In other words, kids typically develop beliefs that either drive them to overspend, underspend, worry over money, or avoid money altogether because it disgusts them. Unfortunately, many of these extreme beliefs about money can push children to make poor financial decisions that impact them for life.