{"id":235391,"date":"2018-02-13T05:00:09","date_gmt":"2018-02-13T13:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getrichslowly.org\/?p=235391"},"modified":"2023-12-05T14:27:06","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T21:27:06","slug":"teaching-kids-about-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/teaching-kids-about-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching kids about money: How to raise money-smart kids"},"content":{"rendered":"
A few years ago, I polled my Twitter followers to ask: “What did your parents teach you about money? Anything? Did it work?<\/strong>“<\/p>\n A lot of folks responded to say that their parents were poor examples:<\/p>\n But not all<\/em> parents fail at training their children about money. Plenty of folks picked up good habits from the Bank of Mom and Dad. Here are some of my favorite anecdotes and tips:<\/p>\n Teaching your children about money is one of the best things you can do to ensure their future success. Financially aware kids become financially aware adults.<\/p>\n How do you teach kids about money — especially if you haven’t yet figured out money for yourself?<\/strong> This is a tough question for me to answer since I have zero experience raising children. That said, I’ve paid close attention to the experiences of my friends and family over the past twenty years. While I don’t have any personal experience with this subject, I’ve observed what has and has not worked for others.<\/p>\n <\/a>Some parents try to shield their kids from the family finances, but this often does more harm than good. From the parents I’ve spoken to, the ones whose kids seem to have the best handle on money are the ones who’ve seen how Mom and Dad deal with money, both the good and the bad. If they see the challenges you face, they can prepare for them in their own lives.<\/p>\n A few years ago<\/a>, I chatted with New York Times<\/em> columnist Ron Lieber about his book The Opposite of Spoiled<\/em><\/a>, which is all about “raising kids who are grounded, generous, and smart about money”.<\/p>\n \u201cHow do children become spoiled?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re not born that way,\u201d he said. \u201cWe do it to them. Nobody wants to raise a spoiled child, yet it happens all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we talk about spoiled children,\u201d Lieber told me, \u201cthe opposite qualities are modesty, patience, thrift, generosity, perspective, perseverance, courage, grit, bravery, prudence, and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing is,\u201d he continued, \u201cyou can use money as a central tool to teach kids about every single one of these. Instead of shying away from the topic, what if we put money at the center of family conversations? What if we assumed not that money subverts values but contributes to them? Because it does. This is the path to financial literacy and financial education.\u201d<\/p>\n From what I’ve seen, there are four steps parents can take to teach their kids smart financial habits:<\/p>\n Most of all, make this learning process interactive. Involve your kids in frugal activities that teach them self-sufficiency, such as gardening, baking, home improvement, and so on. Teach them to comparison shop at by having them help at the grocery store. As they get older, make them financial apprentices: Show them how to pay bills, check a credit score<\/a>, and buy a car. Teach them that managing a household is a team effort.<\/p>\n\n
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<\/span>Teaching Kids About Money<\/span><\/h2>\n
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