If only schools made financial literacy part of the regular curriculum along with maths and sciences, kids can formally learn about money management at a much younger age and become more proficient at it as they grow older.
However, since that is clearly not the case, parents will have to take up the cudgels and teach them about financial literacy themselves.
If you’re teaching your kids about money management, here are some smart ways to go about it.
Get them to do chores and give them an allowance.
Some people might be apprehensive about giving their children allowances to do chores. Still, no one can deny that chores, allowances, and the use of a kids chore app are instrumental in teaching them how to manage money.
When they do chores and give them an allowance, using a chore app will help your kids develop the most basic and vital money management routines, which will serve them well when they grow up.
With a chore app, parents can schedule daily, weekly or monthly schedules that their kids will find easy to follow. Kids will also be able to see not only the money they’re earning but actually manage it, and eventually learn to transfer funds to get actual cash from their parents, among other things.
Make your money management lessons age-appropriate.
You might be tempted to teach your child about the basics of stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments, but you need to hold your horses in that regard.
As with the chores you assign to them, the financial concepts you would want your child to grasp would be age-appropriate ones.
If your kids are still very young, the concept of money itself would be a great conversation starter. You can help them understand that money buys everything we need, from food and clothing to the car that drops them off at school every day.
If you have teenagers, they would be old enough to understand how important bank accounts are. Learning how credit cards—or credit in general—works is also something your teenagers can also sink their teeth into.
Talk about finances while doing everyday activities.
If you think that one talk about finances with your kid and you’re done, then you’ve got another thing coming.
Learning financial literacy is a process that will continue into adulthood. To help your kids learn as much as they can while they’re still young, you would do well to work money lessons into your daily activities and conversations.
Bringing them along when you shop for groceries is a smart way of doing this. When your kid tries to choose a breakfast cereal, show him or her different brands, and compare what you can about them, from the sugar content to the price tag. Once your kid has the details, let him or her weigh the pros and cons of each before making the buying decision.
Make sure they understand the importance of having savings.
Children definitely have things they want to buy, but stop yourself from buying them right away.
Teach them how to save first, and emphasize how important saving money is for future wants and needs.
Tell them that when they do chores and receive an allowance, they should save the money they earn so it can grow over time and help them purchase the thing they want.
It’s entirely up to you to make your children learn about money management while they’re young. It would also be great if you could be their financial role models as well because the alternative would be people who flaunt their wealth on the Internet.
When you take it upon yourself to teach your children about money, you prepare them for life as adults. With the financial knowledge they will get from you, they should be able to get through life more smoothly than their peers who didn’t learn about financial literacy as kids.
