How to Instill Good Values in Your Children

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photo courtesy of Cougar1002

The life-long benefits of teaching children good money habits make it well worth the effort. Children who are not taught these skills may pay the consequences for a lifetime. Some parents don’t teach children about money, because they think they shouldn’t talk about money with children, don’t have time or think they don’t have enough money “to worry about”. Most educators and financial advisers feel that parents should take the time regardless of income, and that they should start when children are young.

Perhaps the most important suggestion is that parents need to dvelop a consistent approach both over time and among the adults involved (if more than one). Most people have strong feelings and opinions about money. These come from childhood experiences and the values and beliefs of their families. Many times each parent has had different experiences, beliefs and values.

For the healthy development of children, it is important that parents talk about their own feelings and opinions, and establish a consistent approach to teaching children about money. Here are some of the questions parents should ask themselves and guidelines to keep in mind when educating children about money.

• How should our chilren receive money?
• How will we structure learning experiences about money?
• How will we deal with our children’s differences in handling money? By stage of development, special needs, or personality differences?
• How will we respond to the effects of advertising and peer pressure on our children’s buying requests?

Sharing

Sharing teaches good feelings for giver and receiver and that helping other people doesn’t always require public recognition, gives an opportunity to learn that we have obligations to give money to certain organizations, and giving of oneself rather than giving money or gifts. Some aides parents might try include the following:

• Try explaining that sharing with others includes not only money, but also resources such as time, materials, or skills.
• Use special occasions to remind children about sharing with others who are less fortunate.
• Initiate a community service project, fo which older children can take leadership.
• Help children recognize opportunities to donate time, energy, and skills to community projects.

Saving

Saving is, perhaps, one of the greatest challenges for families in the United States; which has experienced declining rates of savings for many years. Teaching children how to save in balance with other money management activities is critical to their future well-being. Saving teaches a way to get what you want or need, the “pay yourself first” idea, planning for and delaying gratification, the interrelationship of spending and earning, and the variety of different purposes of planned and regular saving. Some suggested teaching ideas include:

• Explain the difference between planned saving (short-term) for a specific want or need, and regular saving (long-term) for unknown items or emergencies.
• Provide non-money rewards to encourage younger children to save. Older children can learn to appreciate the reward of delayed gratification that goes with unseen amounts of money building over long periods of time.
• Consider motivating saving by matching the amount the child saves on an annual or even a monthly basis.

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Filed under Family, Savings

Tags: children, money, saving, sharing, values