You scrimped and saved, built a business, managed your growing fortune wisely. Now, according to studies of the super-rich and the merely wealthy alike, you have one overwhelming concern: How do get your well-off children or grandchildren to think more like you?

Relax: Your kids are probably getting these financial lessons of life on the Internet.

A host of digital entrepreneurs, banks and investment firms are building web and mobile platforms that educate youngsters about money—teaching grade-schoolers how to earn and save for things they want, middle-schoolers how to pay rent and college students how to trade stocks.

The trend is known as "gamification" because the learning comes through computer-game simulations of real-world financial events. Children adopt the personas of college grads getting their first apartment, young moms on a tight budget or small business owners. They pay for groceries and clothes, balance checking accounts and save for big-ticket items.

According to financial educators, gamification is designed not only to teach basic concepts but also to start conversations that let parents instill financial values in their offspring—or, often, to catch up with what kind of economic decisions their kids are already making.

"They have money already," said Eileen Reid, a middle-school family and consumer science teacher in Howard County, Md. "They are getting cellphones and dealing with which plan costs what. They are very aware of their lifestyle." Their parents are the ones who are uncomfortable talking about money, said Reid, whose own financial upbringing was of the "Do you think money grows on trees?" variety.

In her classroom, Reid uses a computer program called JA Finance Park Virtual, a collaboration of Capital One and the nonprofit organization Junior Achievement, to cement lessons she teaches from the blackboard.

"It's an eye-opener for them," she said. "They realize they can't afford what they want their [virtual] children to have. They want $120 tennis shoes, so they have to figure out how to pay for it."

Questions about sneakers quickly become discussions about how money represents priorities, Reid said. "What do you value? Is it really important to give to a charity? Should I continue with my education?" she said. "It's fascinating to watch them come to life when we get to the virtual experience."

The game, used in 468 schools nationwide, has been part of the curriculum at Maryland schools since 2010, after the financial crisis had made business leaders aware of the widespread ignorance about how mortgages, credit cards and other basic financial instruments work.

"The business community started going to the state legislature and said , 'We have to get people more literate,' " Reid said.

Other parents aren't waiting for schools to start the conversation.

Monica Giles, a hairstylist in Denver, has been using the accounting tool Tykoon.com with her 6- and 8-year-old boys. Giles and her husband set up profiles on the site listing household chores and the allowance paid for each task. The boys set savings goal, and fill their online shopping carts with toys and other treasures they hope to buy.

Tykoon turns parent-child "I want this!" battles into conversations about financial responsibility, Giles said. "When you're out shopping, you can turn it back on them," she said. "I ask them, 'Well, do you have enough Tykoon money?' "

Though Tykoon awards kids virtual "coins" for achieving their goals, the money they earn for chores is real—"from the Bank of Mom and Dad," said Mark Bruinooge, a former Bank of America executive who developed the site with The Lending Tree founder Doug Lebda, with help from family therapists.

At first, Giles said, she wanted her kids to see and use physical money. But as transactions become increasingly digital, she said, "kids need to realize that when you see the number on the screen go down, what they have left is real money, and you decide what to move over to savings and what you spend. It's a good transition to banks."

Of course, that's precisely what the companies promoting gamification are counting on.

When Tykoon is fully operational, it will be offered free to users if they link their account with the site to a partner bank. (An unlinked Tykoon subscription will cost $4.95 a month.) As families mingle their Tykoon activities with real savings accounts, "banks can build brand equity with the family," Bruinooge said.

The banks hope gamification will not only attract future customers but help convert them to using online services, which are cheaper to provide than in-person interactions. In Europe, where banks adopted gamification earlier than their American counterparts, there are games for adults as well as children—all aimed squarely at promoting web banking.

Some see educating the next generation about money as too serious to be left to games.

"Our viewpoint is that investment is a serious activity, and should not be driven by amusements," said Nicole Sherrod, managing director of TD Ameritrade's trading group. "We are investing in the knowledge of today's youth, as they are the clients of tomorrow."

For the past two years, the company has made its online trading platform, Think or Swim, available to students at 60 high schools and colleges across the country. The educational version comes with a play trading account with $100,000 in "paper money"—what others in the finance education business call virtual cash.

"They learn about the stock market using the same platform that their parents are trading on," Sherrod said. "It bridges the gap between academics and reality."

That gap is closed altogether at the University of Idaho. For the past seven years, finance students at the Moscow campus have used Think or Swim to build on a $1 million endowment to the state school by trader Rotchford Barker.

In a prerequisite course called Market Trading Strategies, students familiarize themselves with the program and trade using the system's paper money. In Trading 2, the 15 or so students in the Barker Capital Management Group make consensus decisions about investments and implement them using real money.

"We invest in all sorts of asset classes—equities, bonds, futures, derivatives" using "the gamut of investing ideas," said Mat Schaefer, a senior and chief investment officer of the group. The largest amount Schaefer recalls investing in one day is $100,000, and he says they haven't lost money in any semester. "We're not going really for radical growth. The main thing were learning is risk management."

While it's exciting to get a big winner, Schaefer added, the group's main concern is "to have money around for future students."For those worried about what's going to happen to their hard-earned money, it's the best lesson their children could learn.

More from CNBC:

How the student loan crisis is draging down home prices

Toyportfolio.com co-founder Stephanie Oppenheim tells TODAY all about the best toys for kids every year. TODAY.com asked her to share her picks for the WORST. What toys should you never give, especially to someone else's child?

Super noisy toys
If it's so annoyingly loud or insistent that you want to scream, that's a good indication that the toy is too noisy. Unless you know that this particular family loves the clamor, I'd steer clear of loud toys or products without volume control. That's one of the factors we look at when we review toys.

Toys with projectile parts
You can't ensure that siblings won't "accidentally" shoot in the direction of their little sister. I'd also be careful about giving toys that come with lots of small parts when you know there is a baby or toddler in the house.

Gross toys
Toys that enable you to make green candy snot just don't do it for me. I also steer clear of what I call ugly "rococo-plastic." Toys should have a certain level of design.

A couple more tips to remember when picking the perfect gift for children:

Parent intensive
Don't give a gift that requires a great deal of parental supervision, unless you know the parent is really into trying a chemistry set, putting together a 1,000-plus piece construction set, or teaching their children how to play a super complicated board game.

Special needs
Be mindful of the special needs of the children on your list. For example, a child with ADHD may be too frustrated by a long game with lots of rules. We have a list of toys for kids with special needs on our site.

More from TODAY Moms:
Holiday card stress: Why parents strive for perfection
Ho-ho-high-tech: Kids send digital wish lists to Santa's inbox
Kids at adult holiday parties? Kelsey Grammer did it at Playboy mansion

UrbanSitter.com's study on average hourly rate by city and number of children watched

Parents in New York City are dishing out the highest hourly rate for babysitters in the country, at $15.50 an hour. But even in lower-cost cities such as St. Louis, date night can cost nearly $10 an hour just for someone to watch the kids.

UrbanSitter.com, a site that provides babysitting services to parents in cities around the country, reviewed its database of several thousand sitter bookings and found the average hourly rate for sitters in the Big Apple to be more than $20 for three kids, with Los Angeles and San Francisco not far behind. 

The average hourly rate per child nationally, the site reported, was $12.75; and the average total booking for jobs was $67.

While babysitting costs can add up, the hourly rate hasn’t changed much in recent years, partly because there are so many more babysitters trying to get into the market, said Lynn Perkins, co-founder of UrbanSitters.

“There are a lot of college students and graduates looking to babysit because the cost of college is going up and parents are looking for kids to help support themselves,” she explained.

Nannies and college graduates with early childhood education experience still command higher fees of $16 to $22 an hour, but college sitters with little experience are willing to work for less, she said.

The steep price tag makes date night a rare treat for many parents.

Susan Fox, founder of Park Slope Parents, an online community of 4,600 families in Brooklyn, N.Y., did her own survey this year and found that 53 percent of neighborhood parents said they didn’t go out more because of the sitter expense. 

“We found the average cost of date night and sitter combined is $158,” she said.

Fox has two young children and goes out about once every three weeks. She pays her sitter from $15 to $18 an hour.

No matter the cost, some parents are more than willing to pay.

Nina Balan of Chelmsford, Mass., doesn’t care if a night out with her husband, David, ends up costing more than $200 including sitter expenses.

Courtesy Nina Balan

Nina Balan with her daughters, Sofia and Ava

At about $12 to $14 an hour, she typically ends up paying about $75 for for the sitter plus a tip of $5 or $10 tip if the couple is late getting home.

“We need Mommy and Daddy time,” said Balan, who runs mommy lifestyle blog MamaSaysWhat. 

While nothing’s going to derail date night, she does wish she had family nearby to take on some of the babysitting so they didn’t have to dish out so much money.

But Balan said she’s willing to pay a hit higher than the going rate because she requires more from the sitters who watch her daughters, Sofia, 8, and Ava, 5.

“I ask all my babysitters to have CPR and first aid training,” she said. “And if they don’t have it I offer to pay for it. I know it’s a bit nuts but that’s what I do.”

There’s a dirty little secret working mothers have been keeping: They’re happy.

A new study found that nearly eight out of ten employed mothers are enjoying being a working parent. So much for the endless talk about working mommy guilt, the mommy track and overloaded mommies.

According to a poll by Care.com, an online caregiver resource, 78 percent of working mothers say they take pleasure in the daily grind; and 50 percent said that their own career serves as a great example for their kids.

“Most love being a great role model for their children and many feel more creative and motivated as a working-parent and even feel they add a better perspective at their jobs now that they are moms," said Katie Bugbee, managing editor of Care.com, which polled 1,000 women with children under 18 last month. (There were about 20 million working mothers with kids under 18 in the United States last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)

In more working mommy good news, the study also found that toiling moms seem to be finding the support they need at home; and they have big plans for their career futures.

The study found:

• 77 percent have a spouse or partner who participates in raising the kids.
• 89 percent said their significant other supported their career goals.
• 64 percent said they feel work demands don’t interfere with their ability to be a good parent.
• 58 percent have a goal to move higher in the professional ranks.
• 78 percent said they don’t feel they were passed over for a promotion due to lack of work commitment.
• And 29 percent actually said they fee more productive after becoming a parent.

The findings weren’t all rosy, especially when it comes to childcare.

The study found that nearly three out of four companies where the working moms were employed did not offer childcare benefits. And about 39 percent had to miss work during the year because of childcare issues.

 "This survey makes it clear that much still needs to be done in the workplace to support them in motherhood,” Bugbee said.

More Latino children are living in poverty than children of any other racial or ethnic group in the country, according to according to an analysis of new data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Child poverty among Hispanics rose to 6.1 million in 2010 -- up sharply from just over 4 million in 2005. It marks the steepest increase versus any other ethnic group over that period, the report from the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center, shows.

In 2010, 37.3 percent of poor children in America were Latino, 30.5 percent were white and 26.6 percent were black, according to the report. 2010 was the first year in U.S. history when the single largest group of poor children was not white.

“This negative milestone for Hispanics is a product of their growing numbers, high birth rates and declining economic fortunes,” the report said, noting that the 2010 U.S. Census shows Hispanics now represent a record 16.3 percent of the total U.S. population, but an even larger share (23.1 percent) of the nation’s children.

This disparity is driven mainly by high birth rates among Hispanic immigrants, the Pew Hispanic Center notes. Of the 6.1 million Latino children living in poverty, more than two-thirds (or 4.1 million) are the children of immigrant parents. The rest are the children of parents born in the U.S.

Among the 4.1 million impoverished Latino children of immigrants, the vast majority (86.2 percent) were born in the U.S., the report said.

Getty Images stock

The Great Recession and its painful aftermath has had an indelible effect on most Americans’ lives, and now some are wondering how deep an impact it will have on the next generation as well.

The Centers for Disease Control reported last month that fertility rates fell 4 percent between 2007 and 2009, to 66.7 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44. That’s the largest drop in more than 30 years.

The CDC said in its report that it’s not possible to link the decline in fertility to the decline in the economy just using fertility rate data.

Still, some are already making those types of connections. The Pew Research Center published a report last year comparing birth rate data with economic data and finding a link between the two.

Readers, did you put off — or even decide against — having a child because of the uncertain economic situation? If so, send me an e-mail. Please include your contact information since some responses may be used for an upcoming story.

Parents should be honest when teaching their children about finances, money guru David Bach says.

"Money should not be a taboo subject," he says. If you are in debt and experiencing money woes, share your problems with your children — don't keep them behind closed doors.

The best-selling author of "Debt Free for Life," Bach says his family taught him about investing and the value of money at an early age. His grandmother helped him buy McDonald's stock at age 7. He is passing along some of the same lessons to his own 7-year-old son, Jack.

Watch the video below for more tips on how to teach your kids about what things cost, the importance of savings, strategies for allowances and how to give to charity. Our favorite lesson: how a child can turn $5 a day into a half-million-dollar cash stash.

It appears that Cap'n Crunch has survived the mutiny ... at least for now.

How did a rumored mutiny turn into a charge of cereal killing? Here is the sordid tale of Cap'n Crunch's alleged demise:

A DailyFinance story about the cereal's slow fade into obscurity created an Internet hurricane this week. According to DailyFinance, Quaker Oats and its parent company PepsiCo have scaled back their marketing campaign for the once-popular children's cereal. The good Cap'n looked like he was destined to sail into retirement.

"This is an OUTRAGE" wrote Matt Stafford of Haarlem, Netherlands, in much-thumbs-upped response on Facebook. "What's the shelf life of that stuff? I'll need to buy exactly enough to have a bowl everyday forever."

Don't worry, Quaker says.

"Cap'n Crunch is here to stay," says Quaker spokeswoman Denise Lauer. "In fact, the Cap'n just set sail on a social media journey with a new Facebook page. We launched an official Facebook presence for Cap'n Crunch so our adult consumers can stay up-to-date on all things Cap'n Crunch."

Fans of the sugar-laden cereal can breathe easier, but questions about Crunch's future still remain: Can an unhealthy children's cereal, which is no longer marketed directly to children, succeed solely on adults' nostalgia?

Rumors of the Cap'n's retirement may have bubbled up due to a carefully crafted guerrilla marketing campaign, AdAge reports. With no apparent corporate backing, a Chicago agency called Giant Steps launched a "Where's the Cap'n?" social-media barrage, putting up a website, Twitter feed, Facebook page and distributing "Missing" posters for the Cap'n.

The agency was responding to the odd fact that the Cap'n had no social media presence and was absent from the Quaker website.

The end result of the campaign: A few bloggers got snookered, and adult fans of the cereal released a tidal wave of angry Facebook posts and Twitter tweets.

And what about the cartoon story lines that made the cereal a hit with kids? The original cartoon commercials created by famous animator Jay Ward, of "Rocky and Bullwinkle" fame, live on, thanks to YouTube. Will Cap'n Crunch's animated battle against the Soggies one day resume?

Quaker Oats

The Soggies have finally won: Cap'n Crunch is quietly sailing into retirement.

Long derided by health experts for its high sugar content – a single serving contains 12 grams – the cereal is no longer being actively marketed by Quaker, DailyFinance reports. It appears parent company PepsiCo is forcing the good Cap'n to walk the plank.

Cap'n Crunch was once the No. 1 breakfast cereal, but pressure from the White House and health activists is having an effect on how PepsiCo and other food companies peddle their products to kids. Sales of the cereal were down 6.8 percent in 2010.

Last year, PepsiCo vowed to reduce added sugar per serving by 25 percent and saturated fat by 15 percent in its products over the next 10 years.

"PepsiCo is no longer marketing Cap'n Crunch cereal directly to children. In a sense, you could say that they have retired Cap'n Crunch, and that's a good thing," Jennifer Harris, of the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University, told DailyFinance. "Unfortunately, children continue to view hundreds of ads per year for high-sugar cereals from General Mills, Kellogg's and Post Foods."

The critics have a point: Children cereals contain 85 percent more sugar, 65 percent less fiber and 60 percent more sodium when compared with adult cereals, according to the Rudd Center research. The average preschooler has viewed more than 500 television ads for such cereals.

The Fiscal Times

The kids may be all right, but they’re also expensive.

The food, the child care, the medical expenses – they all add up to about $286,050, and that’s before you even send the little one off to college, according to the Department of Agriculture.

The Fiscal Times, which cited that figure in a recent report on a potential baby dearth in America, also put together this handy pie chart showing how all those kid costs break down.

Both the chart and the dollar figure are based on U.S. Department of Agriculture's 2009 data for a middle-income husband-and-wife family with two children.

Has the cost of raising children put the brakes on your plans to have (more) children?