We are not taught about money in schools yet we spend our entire lives either learning to work for money or actually working for money. The best place to teach your kids about money is at home and the parent is the best teacher for this job. Below is my attempt at imparting some money skills to the young ones:
Creativity and Resourcefulness. I play “experiments” with my daughters over the weekends. I usually challenge the elder one to build or make something. When we decide what to make something she has to assemble the needed items from around the house. Sometimes we take a walk to the nearby hardware shop to buy ropes, tape, etc. We then engage in the building process. She then show cases her creation to her mom and explains how the contraption works. The idea is to demonstrate that the world is an abundant place for a creative and resourceful person. Any situation or circumstance can be transformed into something useful.
Work. We encourage the kids to engage in some kind of work at home, e.g. washing plates, cleaning compound, etc. We reward them with a few coins for their effort. We also try to explain our professions to them. My elder daughter proudly refers to herself as a little Engineer. This is because she always sees me fixing things around the house. I usually call her to help me to fix small things like leaking taps, squeaky doors, etc. The mother has tried to convince her that law is a more noble profession but to no avail. I also usually take them to the factory and show them how we make the various juices and tomato sauces we sell.
Savings. We have bought them savings boxes where they keep their “hard earned cash.” The boxes are wooden, have famous cartoon characters, and have a key which we keep. They are usually very excited to drop coins in the box.
Goal Setting. We have started selling a Dream Nest savings kit which includes a dream board. So each child has a dream board where they record their savings goal and track their savings in the box. The idea is to stimulate the “dreaming and visualization” process. Visualization greatly increases the odds of achievement of any goal.
So those are some of the things we are doing to impart some financial literacy in our kids. Share your experience in the comments below.
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