Tag Archives: money

How to Ready Your Kids for Financial Success from the Beginning

As parents, our goal is to prepare our children for adult life, independence, and successful living. A key component of this is ensuring they have the best understanding of personal finance as possible. However, this can be a daunting task, especially if we, as parents, may not be modeling the best behaviors when it comes to our wallets. Here are some helpful ways to set an example and educate your children on the importance of understanding their finances.

Examine Your Own Relationship with Money through the Eyes of Your Children

As we know, children mirror us, watching everything we do and imitating both our best and worst behaviors. Extensive research done on this topic shows that kids copy us all on their own, and that these behaviors become part of their personalities. This extends to watching parents and caregivers navigate their relationships with money. Think about how you act when you take your kids shopping.

Do you make expensive purchases to relieve stress? If so, your kids will likely follow suit, creating a pattern early on of emotional spending.
Do family conversations about money always turn into an argument, or are they simply non-existent? This will teach your kids shame and secrecy. Arguing about money can trigger a stress response in children.

Putting down an impulse purchase with a shrug and leaving the store teaches your child that it’s normal to pass on spending if it’s not in the budget. Setting an example by making the discussion of finances comfortable and open will teach your kids to be at ease when planning financial decisions. Look inward and examine your own attitudes and habits surrounding money, and as you improve, your kids will begin to reflect those healthy habits.

How to Give an Allowance

~ so your kids grow up financially savvy.

Ever get sick and tired of kids begging for one more thing?
Ever feel taken for granted because your kids don’t appreciate all you do and buy for them?
Ever wish your teenager was more responsible with money?
Ever wish your children had a little more patience and stop expecting things RIGHT NOW?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, my advice to you is give them an allowance. It’s as important as teaching them to swim.

Having an allowance will teach your children how to manage, use, save, spend, and value money. And, maybe most importantly, they will learn delayed gratification—a lost skill in this age of instant everything.

Growing up with an allowance means your children have a much better chance of managing their future finances responsibly. When children have their own money to spend, they soon learn the value of what they spend it on. A tempting toy that breaks the first day becomes a lesson in quality. Spending the wad on candy means there is nothing left for anything else.

You will no longer spend time and energy arguing over what you will and won’t give them money for. When you hear, “But Mom, everyone else has one,” you can say, “Great. How long do you think it will take to save up for it? Let’s figure it out.” When they beg for more money, you can say, “You’ll have it with your next allowance. I know it’s hard to wait.”

Sept ’19 Q&A – What to Do About Lying

Q. My 9 yo son recently stole some money, told me he didn’t, and that his friends must have. Then he planted the money in his sister’s room to frame her before telling me to, “search my room”. I’ve no idea what to say or do. I asked him repeatedly. I left a pot out for the money to be put back anonymously, and then he hides it in his sister’s room.

A. This is a tough situation for all of you. I’m sure there are deeper issues besides the coverup of the money that have led to this situation and need to be addressed. I suspect that underneath the behavior (lying), which is always a signal to a deeper need, there are trust issues. Namely that your son doesn’t trust you because he has learned that you don’t trust him, and therefore he is doing what he can to get away with what he wants. Nothing wrong with a child trying to get what he wants. But when he becomes devious to do it, then there is a problem. The deviousness comes out of a fear that he can’t get what he wants otherwise. There is not trust.

Engaging Kids in Housework

Kids don’t want to do chores. That’s a fact. Expect this. That doesn’t mean let them off the hook. It is essential for our kids to be contributing members of the family to develop an investment in and consideration for their family members. A family is a team. When you are on a team, every team player is important to the working of the whole.

But when you yell, bribe, or threaten them to do their chores, the underlying assumption is that they should want to but they don’t. This unrealistic expectation means you will yell when that expectation is not met. But if you understand that kids don’t want to do chores, you will be more effective at ensuring they get to work.

Remember when your toddlers and preschoolers begged to run the vacuum, fold laundry, wash windows, and sweep the floor? It would have taken the entire morning and you’d have to do it over anyway. You didn’t have the time or patience so you got them out of the way to just get it done. Well, you might have missed your chance. Little children want to help — until we make them.

By the time they are capable of doing a decent job, time has elapsed since toddler enthusiasm, and they no longer want to be with you every minute of the day. They are into their own thing and household tasks take them away from their own thing. Of course they don’t want to.

Now, you know your kids are going to fight you, moan, and complain when you ask them to do their chores. Who wants that? Plus you’ll have to police them, and then what if they don’t do them? That’s when consequences come in to play — usually taking something away that they care about, which turns into a battle and you erode any inkling of desire. Certainly no self-esteem is developed.

Requiring help is not about teaching them how to clean house or making them do chores for the sake of doing chores. Your kids will most likely keep a decent house one day even if they never clean yours. And they will learn to do what has to be done when it’s their responsibility. Requiring help is about helping. It’s about team work, taking on responsibilities to help the team run more smoothly. It’s about the relationship a child has with his family. It’s about seeing oneself as a helper. A helping child will be far more invested in family events and planning when she feels like an important member of the team, and she will feel more connected to her family as a source of support (the most important protective factor in anything you fear for your child).

It feels good to know that you help your family out. You feel proud of being needed, of doing things that save time for someone else. I once overheard my twelve-year-old son and his friend trying to best each other as they compared household jobs, griping as their chests swelled. That doesn’t mean they want to or would offer help if you didn’t require it. Don’t expect the offer to help for many years. Instead expect grumbling.

Here are some key points to help your kids be better helpers:

Ditch the word “chores”. No one wants to do chores, but people like to be helpful, useful. Use “help” or “jobs”.

Understand and be considerate of their agendas, even things you hate them doing or think of as trite. Remember, your child’s agenda is as important to him as yours is to you. Expect them to want to play rather than help.

A child’s job is to get what she wants, when she wants it. We are all like that. Maturity opens the perception that other people want what they want, too. So, consideration and compromises become necessary for relationships. You don’t have to teach your child this (the teaching comes in the doing), and if you try too early, your attempts will fall on deaf, egocentric ears.