Teaching Children The Fundamentals And Value Of Money

Train the children in the way they should go

This is a very popular and widely used quote in relation to raising up children, and I believe it can be applied in many aspects of life even in the area of finances. It is true that money holds a very vital importance and relevance in our lives, but another truth is that there is no age limit to start learning about money - the values, uses, etc. As a matter of fact, the earlier you start to teach children about the fundamentals of money, the better they become financially when they grow up, and not just that, they will attain a better financial freedom.

_{Image from Pixabay}

A few days back, I saw one of my friends give his little kid money to go pay for some groceries that they bought at the mall. I stood there and watched how the little boy attached a sense of value to the money, and even calculated the balance that will be given to him. When I asked him why he gave the little boy money to buy the groceries, he simply smiled and told me that "kids need to know the value of money, so that they will know how to make it." This statement really impressed me and I understood that financial knowledge is not only reserved for adults, it should start from kids.

I was discussing with a particular friend, and he made a revelation to me about this same topic of exposing kids to financial knowledge. He told me that he built small piggy-bank for his little boy and for every money that a visitor gifted him, he will ask him to take a part of it and put it into the piggy-bank. It became a part of him that he would not need him to remind him again about it anytime he was gifted with money. With this knowledge, the boy will grow to know the value of saving. One of the reasons why a lot of people enter into financial challenges is because of lack of relevant financial knowledge. But if you start early to be exposed to some of these financial knowledge, it will help you become financially independent and you will attain financial freedom.

While growing up, a lot of us were not exposed to the knowledge of money as kids, and as such, many of us really do not understand the value of money at an early stage of our life. This is why I believe that it will do the child a whole lot of good if they are taught the basics of money - as a tool of exchange, the purchasing power attached to money, how to legally earn it, investments, etc. If the child grows with this knowledge, it will not sound strange to them when they meet it in the real world problems.

I remember the biography of one of the world's leading billionaires that I read about a couple of months back. I was amazed to read that he started his financial/money journey at a very early stage of his life, that by the tender age of 8, he successfully bought his first stock. It is not surprising that he has attained so much height and achieved unimaginable feats in the financial world. You will agree with me that there is a kind of freedom that comes from knowledge. This kind of freedom also manifests in the world of finance when you have had extensive knowledge about money.

_{Image from Pixabay}

One thing to help kids understand is that money should be earned through legal means and through work, so that they will not become "bad actors" when they grow up, and so they will become financially independent. More so, they should know that money is neither fictitious nor magical but something real and transactional. You can start this by giving them tasks to perform and then attach little monetary remuneration to the tasks. This will help to expose them to the fact about earning money. A few days back, a friend called her kids to help her loosen her braids for 10 bucks. Normally, she would have gone to the salon to do it, but she wanted to use it to teach them a few lessons about money, and she achieved that.

The truth is that if you do not teach the little ones what money is, how to get it, how not to get it, etc, others may teach them what it is not, and they may live with the wrong thoughts for life. Remember this popular phrase as I conclude with it:

Catch them young.

Thanks for reading