Teaching Children How to Save Money
Parenting work comes in different ways, from teaching the children how to behave, how to talk, how to study, relating with people at home and out of the house. Lots of teaching here and there for the children to grow up and become better persons in the society. It is also important to teach children how to save money too and not wait for them to grow up before learning the habit of money saving.
In so many occasion, the issue of money saving has been discussed extensively, and to a large extent, it majorly focused on adult in trying to teach them how they can save money for their future forgetting to include children in such training and teaching.
In this post, I want to discuss 5 solid ways on teaching children how to save money for their present and future needs which will help parent as well because for children to know how to save money will give parent some kind of financial relief at certain time. [Read; Tips for managing money for family with low income]
Teaching children how to save money, 5 solid ways
1. Show them Sample: Whether you like it or not, most of what we are doing today are learnt from our parent, so also our children learn quickly from what they see us doing every time. There is no better way to teach children how to save money than showing them example of how to save money, they will want to repeat what their parent is doing and in no time, it becomes part of how they want to live their life. Let children learn from you how to save money, show them good example of money saving and they will follow you.
2. Offer Bonus: To encourage children to save money, you will need to offer them some reward or bonus. Children are sometimes get carried away when they see another things that are of interest to them forgetting that they are learning to save money. Something has to be a reminder to them, that don’t forget the money you’re saving because you will get so so and so reward for saving at a particular time which can be daily, weekly or monthly. The bonus or reward will motivate them to continue saving because, trust children they will not want to miss the reward daddy and mommy want to give to them especially when it is what they like best.
3. Play Money Game: Children love game no doubt about that, you can use this to teach them how to save money. Games like monopoly, casino and various online and offline computer money game that teach children how to handle and save money. This is a strategy that has been proven over and over again and it’s still working today, you don’t have to remind them about the game and when they remember the game, they remember the money saving lesson being learnt from the game.
4. Discuss Money Issue with them: It is always good to include your children when you’re discussing money in the house, though not in all money matter but the money that has to do with them directly. Such money will include their pocket money, school money, lesson money and all other money that the children will feature in. Doing this will enable them to be wise with issue of money and they learn to save to help their parent and not just spending every money that come to their hand.
5. Don’t prevent them from using the money for its purpose: Children can be very funny and can refuse to listen to you when you’re trying to discuss issues of money with them when you don’t allow them to make use of the money they have save for the purpose of which they saved the money for. I have seen this happening in several occasion in real time, they got discourage when their dream or desire could not be met and it’s very hard to get them convinced again.
There you have them, 5 solid ways for teaching children to save money for their want and inculcate the habit of saving into their life. I know you will have at least one question or contribution in your mind right now, please feel free to let us hear your contribution, we love to see you say your mind on teaching children how to save money.
Gosh, I have such strong principles on saving money and that definitely came from my mother. I think the key to getting kids into the practice of saving is to instill the importance of deferred gratification. We live in this crazy, fast paced world where we want everything by yesterday. If we can teach kids the value of waiting, appreciating what we have now and saving for the stuff we don’t, then we’re well on the way to creating a more money conscious society.
Thank you for the post!
Wao! Mena just nail the point and made crystal clear, your comment here show your in-dept knowledge on teaching children how to save money. Really, delay gratification will do lots more in helping kids to learn how to save. I appreciate your comment, thanks for dropping by.