How honest should I be with my teen about money problems?
I've had a lot of people ask me, "How how does the economy and financial issues affect teens?"  Should I tell my child, we have problems right now; we can't afford to buy those for you right now, or we can't afford to get this, or dad lost his job.  They get it, but do they have a full understanding?  Probably not.  And, you know how it stresses us out as adults?  It does the exact same thing to teens.
So, there's a couple of different things-- should they know if there are  issues?  Absolutely.  They need to know so that they can understand when they need something and want extra gas money, and you don't have it,  it shouldn't be a surprise to them.  But, it also shouldn't be something that you lean on to the point of using it as an excuse for everything.  We can't do that, we don't have the money.  You don't want your teen to grow up and constantly be fearful about money, but being realistic-- that's very different.