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

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

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.

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