Money lessons may be saving grace for kids
WE ALL want our kids to be better than ourselves, especially when it comes to how they handle money. Sadly, some parents think that their kids should not know about their finances because they are just kids and that money is supposed to be a private thing.
Well, to this type of parents, I can tell you right now that you have just predestined your kids to financial ruin because they are going to behave exactly like you when they grow up. This selfish attitude produces young adults who are selfish and secretive to their spouses about how much they earn.
Families like these are unable to plan as a family, they have no goals as a couple and will probably never have the desire to have anything grand in their lives because it is an ‘everyone for themselves and God for us all’ type of lifestyle. Sadly, lack of transparency and integrity in money issues leads to lack of transparency in other areas of their lives.
Remember how you learnt football? Did you read a book about how to play the game and became good at it?
How about learning to play basketball? Did you just learn theoretically? Of course not! You had to be taught the rules of the game and be given a ball to play with.
Teaching your children financial responsibility is no different. A parent needs to start passing on these lessons by making kids understand that everyone has duties and responsibilities and that this includes money rules. You might want to consider providing your children with an allowance.
This will help you to teach them about the direct correlation between work and reward by requiring them to contribute to the well-being of the family. You can make the contribution age-appropriate.
Like a basketball game, your kids will need to have real money to learn to be responsible with it. Yes they will, and must, make mistakes just like you did when you were younger.
You cannot stop the kids from making money mistakes, but here is one of the most important money lessons kids need to learn in order to ace their finances in adulthood. Teach them that they can’t have everything because…
This lesson is very important – and believe it or not, some children do grow up to become adults thinking they can have whatever they want when that’s usually not the case.
As a parent, it’s easy to tell your child “no” when they constantly ask for something, but it’s important to follow up by telling them the reason behind the decision. When your child asks for toys or video games, and you know that you don’t have the money to buy those toys, tell the kid no but don’t stop with no – continue to tell them that you have other things you need to do with the money. Be kind enough to satisfy their curiosity by specifying what those things are.
For example, you might say no
“ Teach them that they can’t have everything because…
when they ask for a new game and your reason could be that they might get it for their birthday or around the holidays if they behave and keep up with their chores.
You could also add and say “I can’t afford it at the moment anyway because we need to do grocery shopping”.
Grocery shopping might not sound that important to a sixyear-old, but remind the kid that if you don’t use money to buy groceries, there won’t be anything around the house for breakfast or mention their favourite food or snacks.
So when you take time to tell your kids exactly why you are saying no, it will teach them how to prioritise expenses and they will understand that there is a time for wants and a time for needs.
If parents can teach this to their young kids, society will have less depressed and frustrated 25year-olds and instead have youngsters who are content with where they are in their life journey.