Estás leyendo la prensa de bolsa del futuro | ¿Aún compras prensa escrita para leer sobre Economía?
Find:

Trusting kids with cash

Published by sam - 30/04/08 - 04:04:58 pm

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I don’t know if keeping money matters among adults is unique to Filipinos, or even Asians. Time and again, I have seen parents send children away when talking about financial matters. It’s not just that we don’t want our children to worry. It’s just that not many Filipino parents are comfortable telling their children how much they really earn.

However, trusting children with cash is at the heart of teaching financial literacy in the home. If we want them to understand money, we have to let them handle money. More importantly, we have to truly empower them to decide, after we have taught them the right principles behind money management.

I know of a mother who was widowed and had to feed and clothe four children alone. Gainful employment was hard to find because she was a homemaker before her husband died. It was very tough for the whole family.

She decided to be honest with her children and in a family council showed them all the money that she had. There on the table was a small little heap of bills and coins. Can you imagine what went on that little room?

For sure, it was a gamble on her part. It could have gone bad – children losing hope is heartbreaking. But since that time, none of her children complained that they were getting less allowance than a sibling, or had no new shoes, or need more of this and that. Instead of eating snacks in school, they ignored their grumbling stomach to eat at home.

Most of the children are now very successful, with their own cars, good careers, and have their own families. The money lessons they learned were not imposed, but obtained from a mother who trusted in their ability to choose the right.

I have a tendency to hover like a mother bee, control-freak that I am J. I have been known to overindulge in un-gentle persuasion. This never did my daughter any good.

You might ask: What if they make mistakes?

Let them. This way, the money they will burn is small. You’ll avoid forest fires if they make these mistakes when they are older and married.

Check out the following resources on talking to kids about money.

MyVesta PDF file
US Treasury Website

Let’s go eat some ice cream!

Artículos relacionados

No Comments »

RSS feed for comments. TrackBack URI

Leave a Comment

XHTML: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>

Welcome to Personal Money Management Expert,the blog where you can find advices to save money and to earn more with each dollar. If you want, it's possible to suscribe by mail and receive all news by e-mail.

E-mail:

Este blog funciona gracias a WordPress | Condiciones de uso de los contenidos | Responsabilidad
Entradas y Comentarios feeds. XHTML y CSS válidos.