GENTLE LESSONS CHILDREN NEED TO LEARN
LESSON 1 THERE’S A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WANTS AND NEEDS AND WISHES.
Of course, toddlers are in a “see it, want it” stage of development, which is entirely age-appropriate. But gradually they need to learn that there are some things that we need (like food) and others that we want (a new dress). Other things are more like wishes (a pony). Many of the things that are marketed as “needs” are actually “wants”.
LESSON 2 YOU CAN’T HAVE EVERYTHING YOU WANT, AND YOU CAN’T HAVE EVERYTHING NOW.
This is a tough one for toddlers! Tiny babies need to have their needs met pretty much instantly, but gradually, older babies and toddlers learn to tolerate a little frustration, to wait a few moments or minutes before having their needs met. So you might finish what you’re doing before getting the baby’s food, for instance, meaning that he will wait a few minutes. Learning that he can’t have everything that catches his eye is the basis for making good spending decisions later in life. When your child is a little older, he will start saving for things that he wants. You can’t always have what you want when you want it, but sometimes you can wait for something and work towards it. Delayed gratification can even feel better. With credit cards being so freely available, it’s quite easy for us to have whatever we want, right now – but we all know that the consequences can be very serious. Remember, you can recognise and empathise with your child’s feelings even when you deny him what he asks for: “I know you want the Batman suit and feel upset that you can’t have it, but we already have a Spider-Man outfit. Shall we go home and put that on and play superheroes?”
LESSON 3 MONEY IS A FINITE RESOURCE.
All spending and saving decisions are about choice: “I have this amount of money, now what do I choose to do with it?” Children see you take out a wad of cash in the supermarket, or hand over a credit card in a coffee shop. It’s not hard to see why they imagine your pockets to be bottomless. You see the consequences of this as children grow up – for example, if Hayley loses her school hat, she’ll say: “But you can just buy me another one.”
A good way to teach this lesson is to involve children in making choices when you are out shopping. You might say: “We can get one bag of fruit today. Which do you fancy, the apples or the pears?” With older kids, the choices can be more open-ended and can include the concept of keeping within a certain budget, a fixed amount of money. So, when you go to the movies: “We have R30 to spend on snacks. We can share a popcorn and each get a juice, or we can get a slush each.”
As they get older, children benefit from knowing that their parents prioritise certain spending (a bond, school fees, the phone bill) over others (entertainment, holidays, new clothes).
LESSON 4 MONEY COMES FROM SOMEWHERE.
Young children tend not to think about where money comes from, or question whether there is enough of it. When my son was little, if I said I wouldn’t buy something because we didn’t have money for that, he’d say, incredulously, “Well, just get some from the ATM!” Money seems to just appear magically, but we need to teach kids the old lesson that “money doesn’t grow on trees” (or from the ATM). Explain the simple relationship between work and money – “Mom does her work, and the company pays me money for doing that work. Then I use that money to buy food and clothes for us, and petrol for the car.”
A GOOD WAY TO TEACH THIS LESSON IS TO INVOLVE CHILDREN IN MAKING CHOICES WHEN YOU ARE OUT SHOPPING.