My family went through a bankruptcy when I was a kid. We lost the family business. My parents never told me about it, but I knew. The discussions, the fear of coming home to nothing. It's all real.
Tell your kids, explain to them. Use the difficult time to build a closer bond with them instead of leaving them in the dark.
This kind of sensitivity and denial around financial difficulties is common but very unhealthy for both the kids and the parent.
Kids won’t hate you for having money troubles. They won’t be annoyed that you can’t buy them {cool thing} if it’s clear why you can’t. If they are, it’s another learning opportunity.
I’m doing okay now, but I share my financial mistakes with my kids when it’s relevant and try to keep conversations open about how these matters impact them now and later in their lives.
My hope is that as they age they’ll see me as a resource for help, someone to guide them through things, to recognize that their finances aren’t something to be afraid of or keep secret.
In my parent’s defence, they wanted to hide our financial situation because it scared them and they didn’t want it to scare and unnerve their kids. The trouble is though that like you said, the kids will know anyway. The lack of insight into what’s happening only makes them feel more insecure and normalizes hiding upsetting things from people you love. Good intentions only get you so far, I guess.
To CONTEXTUALIZE is a whole other ball game.
Observing has special risks when you're a small child and cannot work out yet that everything does not relate to you. There's a lot of bad stuff that can go on that's not the fault of the child, but a young enough child will still conclude 'I did that'.
A later trick that we often fail to master as adults is the cause-effect relationship with emotions. When we're hungry we are more likely to snap at others or be rude. When we're stressed about something we're more likely to start fights/arguments. After a tasty meal, a piece of good news, or even intimacy we are more likely to be agreeable. When questioned in the moment both kids and adults will strongly attribute these feelings to the actions of others or simply fabricate a reason on the spot, completely failing to identify the true source of the feeling. (Pedantic note: emotional states are much more complex than I can describe here so we can obviously come up with counter-examples from specific situations. This also doesn't account for personality disorders, eg narcissism).
I can't make heads nor tails of this sentence but the rest of your comment seems reasonable.
?> The tricky part is that: being able to (observe, absorb or even articulate) is one thing, but to contextualize is a whole other ball game.
It’s why I am trying hard to find the right balance of communication with my kids. I don’t want them to waste or act spoiled and entitled, but I never want them to think we’re at risk for anything.