FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — A Fayetteville mother wants you to know you don’t have to spend your child tax credit money on frivolous things, and there’s a way your child can learn about finances too. 

Knowing what to do with your money can be a tricky thing. Few schools teach personal finance and it’s not something that always gets passed down from parents to children.

Kishanna Heyward knows that and wants it to be easier for everyone. It’s why she came up with a book specifically for children to help them learn, but in the process of the child’s learning, the parents learn too. In the margins, she even has a few tips for how parents can spend their money once the dollars from the federal government hit their bank account.

Establishing good credit takes time and patience. Imagine Heyward trying to explain all that to her daughter Olivia. The 4 year old asked her what credit is and how it works. Heyward said, “'Mommie, what is credit?' So as a teacher from an educator I wasn’t exactly able to describe to her what it meant.”

Heyward has a background in the classroom. As an elementary school teacher, she could generally find the answer to her students’ questions in textbooks.

Heyward said, “The teacher in me told me instantly, 'Oh, I need to go online and figure this out.' But I couldn’t.”

So when she couldn’t locate the right material on Google and YouTube, she wrote two children’s coloring books about financial literacy herself: "Credit is King Kareem" and "Credit is Queen Charlene."

The books also have an animated instructional video explaining how credit works.

Heyward said, "Not only for her but for others to learn and enjoy as well.“

She sat down at her kitchen table and flipped through the different pages of the book.

“These are all important aspects of credit I have broken down into kid terminology,” Heyward said.

From the first page through the last—the book touches on the three credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. Deeper into the pages, a child can see what FICO scores are and why keeping a good credit score for a long time is important.

Heyward’s work creates a conversation relevant to the president’s address to the nation about the child tax credit.

President Biden said parents will start receiving payments directly to their bank accounts or by check if they don’t have an account. You get half now, half when you file your tax return for this year. What you do with that money is your business, but smart financial decisions now have huge implications down the road. 

“Everybody loves the book. They pretty much think the book is phenomenal because they kinda all said they wished they had this source when they were kids, right?” Heyward said.

She has this advice for parents who are interested in learning what they can do with this money from Uncle Sam. Her message is to take the money received from the IRS and invest it in your child’s educational future. The College Foundation of North Carolina has an extensive amount of information about the state 529 program—which is a tax free plan designed to help you save for a child’s future college tuition.

“Instead of spending it on clothes, shoes and other things for back to school that really doesn’t matter and really doesn’t make you money, give your children a positive financial foundation,” she said.

Her take goes like this—grow your money, don’t blow your money.

She said she and her husband are receiving money for the child tax credit. Here’s what they are going to do. “We are not using that money. We are just stashing it and letting it grow for her. She will appreciate it later but not now of course,” Heyward added.

Now, if you need it, it’s your choice to use the money for food and necessities. Which if times are tight right now, Heyward agrees it is of course the right thing to do. 

Heyward is now working in real estate properties and is a military spouse.