Money can be a touchy subject. Too little makes life hard. Too much can be a trial as well. Relationships can be pushed to the limit when finances are mismanaged.
It is so important to teach our children the importance of managing their money. I recently read an article, Teaching Gap: 83% of Teens Don't Know How to Manage Money and it made me wonder.
Whether the numbers in the article are accurate, I believe that finance is another subject that parents are expecting their children to pick up elsewhere. A Personal Finance class in high school is good enough, right?
Ha. I don't know about you, but learning the correct way to write a check was helpful but did not teach me anything about MANAGING money. Maybe we talked about budgeting, I don't remember. My point is this: Parents need to take responsibility for their own children and teach them. Period.
If principles of money management such as budgeting and saving money, are taught from a young age how much better off would that high schooler be? And what an advantage it would be to them as they become adults!
I want my kids to grow up knowing that money doesn't just magically appear but is earned through hard work. For this reason, I personally do not give my kids an allowance. Maybe that will change when they actually need money (my kids are all under 7). Right now, they earn money by doing extra chores around the house.
Even when your kids are learning the "hard work" principle, the saving idea may be lost to them. I recently heard a mom tell about her daughter who just graduated from high school and is moving out of the state to go to college. She said that although she had been working for 3 years at varies jobs, her daughter didn't have a penny saved for college.
I am not here to judge her. I had very little money saved for college. One big regret about my teenage years is that I didn't learn how to save and I helped my boyfriend (now husband) spend just about every penny he earned as well. We had a grand time going out to eat, buying clothing and books, you name it.
Sorry. Ranting.
We just can't assume that by having a job and working hard, our kids will know how to take care of their wages.
If we as parents could take seriously the responsibility of teaching our own children principles of managing money, they will...someday...thank us for our work. Remember, teaching in the home is often by example and with comments, not big lectures.
Here are some of the principles that are crucial to good money management:
Earning through work
Budgeting
Discerning need vs. wants
Saving
Giving to charity
Positive communication about money
OK, now I'll get off my soapbox. (One of them, anyway.)
If we as parents could take seriously the responsibility of teaching our own children principles of managing money, they will...someday...thank us for our work. Remember, teaching in the home is often by example and with comments, not big lectures.
Here are some of the principles that are crucial to good money management:
Earning through work
Budgeting
Discerning need vs. wants
Saving
Giving to charity
Positive communication about money
OK, now I'll get off my soapbox. (One of them, anyway.)
Teaching children about finance is very important! A couple of ideas we used that might be helpful to someone else. We also didn't give our children an allowance. However, when we went clothes shopping, like say for start of school year, we let them know how much they had to spend and let them decide on how they spent it. (The only stipulation was modest clothing.) That way it wasn't us saying no you can't have that designer clothing, they saw how much they had and if they wanted more for their money that bought sale items, etc. They also knew there wouldn't be any more clothing money for a few months. I still have a daughter that will call me and tell me the great bargins she has gotten. This is just one area, but it spills over into other areas!
ReplyDeleteA good book to read is "Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World" by H. Stephen Glenn if you are interested.
We also had a FHE where we took the monopoly money and used it to show Dad's earnings and where the money goes. They were amazed at how much went for fixed expenses and what we had we could be more flexible on. We asked for suggestions to help us meet our expenses and they suggested cutting cable. It helped them realize that mom and dad aren't made of money. That we have to budget to meet our needs.
One last thing: Our children had paper routes, short route after school where we lived. They made $80 to $100 a month. After tithing they put half in the bank in a savings account and they had the other half to spend. The money in the savings account could either go towards a mission, education or marriage. The half they got to spend was up to them. We still provided clothing money and necessities as appropriate. If they wanted more clothing they had money to spend for it.
Just ideas.
Ina