Photo: Murali Nath | Dreamstime.com
While many parents may avoid the topic of finances with their children to shield them from the burden of “grown-up” responsibilities, educating your little ones on money could go a long way to help them achieve financial stability in the future.
Being adept at handling money is as necessary as getting good grades and a good education. It’s a key life skill that promotes savings, teaches budgeting and is essential to having a comfortable and successful adult life. And just like learning math, history and science at a young age helps you understand the world better, understanding the concept money at a young age prepares you for handling it in the real world later on.
Experts say that financial education should be an integral part of students’ curriculum and school should spend more time on the subject. However, until that happens, parents need to teaching children how to use cash, work for it and save and budget so as to have enough.
A good way for your child to learn the ropes is by introducing a weekly or monthly allowance. Let your child use this for things that she or he craves, like sweets or toys. The allowance amount should not be extravagant, but just enough to make him or her think about how best to spend the money, as well as make it last long enough for the entire month or week. Your child will also learn to set aside and save up cash for a bigger purchase she may have her eye on.
Letting the child earn a little extra money through certain household chores can also teach them some good work ethic too. Just make sure they complete their chores and are not rewarded for poorly-done tasks.
According to Mainstreet.com, financial professionals also recommend that your children learn to be charitable. It’s a good idea to teach them to portion out earnings into savings, spending and setting aside a small percentage to charity. This teaches them to be grateful for their earnings, empathetic towards those who are not as fortunate and feel good about being able to help.
So when it comes to teaching children about money, it’s never too soon to include them in relaxed discussions on earning, buying things or savings.
Do you give your child an allowance? How is it working out? Please like FamiLife’s page on Facebook so that you get all our articles and others can find us.