At the grocery store, Jamie Corum sets a two-minute timer for her 10-year-old daughter to look around. Then she resets it to 10 minutes so her daughter can choose one thing to buy, making sure she considers her budget and how much tax she\u2019ll have to pay.<\/p>\n
Corum and her wife have made it a priority to teach financial lessons to their three children, using engaging activities to encourage their interest in topics like saving and budgeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy goal is for them to have a healthy relationship with money and not have insecurities,\u201d said Corum, an Austin, Texas-based cybersecurity professional.<\/p>\n
Not everyone feels as confident. Money can be a difficult conversation, especially if parents don\u2019t feel totally comfortable with the topic themselves. But Jennifer Seitz, director of education at Greenlight, a family personal finance app, said that\u2019s starting to change.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis generation is really committed to doing better for their kids even though a majority of parents don\u2019t feel equipped,\u201d Seitz said.<\/p>\n
There are more banking products available to help parents think about their children\u2019s financial futures, including debit cards for kids that can be used under parental supervision and apps that gamify money to make it approachable for kids.<\/p>\n
Some people actually start learning while they are parenting, like Naseema McElroy, a nurse who became a money content creator. When McElroy\u2019s oldest daughter was a year old, she felt inspired to learn more about personal finance to pay off debt. As she learned more, she started to share her knowledge with friends and then a wider audience online.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started just from wanting to share the lessons that I was learning about money with my friends because I felt like we learn so late in life and then we all had daughters,\u201d McElroy said. <\/p>\n
Many parents want to start talking about finances with their children because they didn\u2019t have financial education growing up, Seitz said.<\/p>\n
Here are some expert recommendations if you want to start talking about money with your kids:<\/p>\n
Talk about money openly and often<\/p>\n
Money conversations can feel uncomfortable, especially if your family didn\u2019t encourage them. But if you want your children to engage with money in a healthy way, it\u2019s best to talk about it, said Carrie Joy Grimes, a personal finance expert and founder of WorkMoney, a personal finance nonprofit. <\/p>\n
\u201cHave conversations about money in front of your kid to normalize it,\u201d Grimes said. <\/p>\n
In Corum\u2019s family, the topic of money has become part of their daily lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talk about how we have a budget for the house, that everything that their mom and I bring into the house has an assignment, a job,\u201d Corum said.<\/p>\n
A great way to start is by talking about the cost of things, said Courtney Pettway, CEO and founder of KidVestors, a financial literacy platform for children. Pettway recommends asking questions like: What does this item cost? Why do you want this item? Is it a need or a want? And if they\u2019re getting an allowance, you could ask: How long would it take for you to save up for this item?<\/p>\n
At the dinner table, while you\u2019re at the grocery store, when you travel or shop for clothes, take day-to-day situations and turn them into money lessons. <\/p>\n
Teach children how to make money decisions<\/p>\n
A key aspect of personal finance is knowing how to make choices with money. This can be taught by giving kids small amounts of money and allowing them to choose how to spend it, Grimes said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI gave (my daughter) enough money that she could make choices with it. So she learned early on that she had enough she could save up for something, so she could say no to things and say yes to other things,\u201d said Grimes. \u201cLearning to say no, learning to hold money to yourself for long enough to get the thing you want, it\u2019s a really hard skill.\u201d <\/p>\n
When giving children the opportunity to choose, it\u2019s crucial parents don\u2019t impart judgment on their decisions, said Bobbi Rebell, consumer finance expert at BadCredit.org, a personal finance website. Framing choices as personal preferences rather than right or wrong answers will build children\u2019s confidence in their decision-making process, she said. <\/p>\n
Parents can find free financial literacy worksheets for children from Hands on Banking, a free financial education service by Wells Fargo. <\/p>\n
Teach how to set financial goals<\/p>\n
For many children, their first access to money is through an allowance. Whether it\u2019s saving for a new video game or a bicycle, setting a goal for their money can be a good way to teach children the value of saving.<\/p>\n
\u201cRecognizing the progress, seeing how close they\u2019re getting to the goal, visualizing the end goal, and then really celebrating when they achieve that goal can help them learn that when they can make small financial goals a reality,\u201d Seitz said.<\/p>\n
Tip jars can be an analog way to track progress, Pettway said. Encourage your child to add a portion of the money they receive to a \u201csavings\u201d jar, an \u201cinvesting\u201d jar and a \u201cgiving\u201d jar. As children see their jars getting full, they begin to be motivated to continue adding money.<\/p>\n
It can also be beneficial to make children active participants in future plans, recommended Lindsay Bryan-Podvin, financial therapist and founder of Mind Money Balance, a financial wellness service. If, for example, your child wants to go to an expensive sports summer camp, encourage them to save a portion of the cost from their allowance or summer job.<\/p>\n
Allow them to make mistakes<\/p>\n
It\u2019s inevitable that kids will make mistakes while learning about money. These can be approached as opportunities to learn important money lessons that will be useful for their future, Rebell says. However, it\u2019s important that you let your children make the mistakes rather than solve issues for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you constantly bail them out, they\u2019re not gonna learn to manage it,\u201d Rebell said.<\/p>\n
Bryan-Podvin also recommends that you avoid responding to mistakes in a negative way. Showing intense frustration or anger can hurt children\u2019s trust and make them feel like they cannot turn to their parents when they make normal mistakes.<\/p>\n
\u201cHelp them learn how to manage their emotions, help them think about how they might do things differently,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n
Get creative<\/p>\n
Money can often seem boring, so making it fun, engaging, and entertaining can be the key to keeping your children\u2019s interest alive.<\/p>\n
For example, when shopping for things like school supplies, Corum chooses an appropriate amount from her own budget for her daughter to decide which items she wants. However, when shopping for toys or other non-essential items, Corum gives her daughter a portion of her allowance or other extra money she might have from special chores. <\/p>\n
Corum gave her children debit cards and uses a family personal finance app connected to the cards to distribute their allowances and monitor their spending. Her children have access to their debit cards through their own app portal where they can see their spending, save, invest and learn more about personal finance topics. <\/p>\n
Apps like Acorns Early, Greenlight and BusyKid are among the most popular family personal finance apps.<\/p>\n
Morga writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the grocery store, Jamie Corum sets a two-minute timer for her 10-year-old daughter to look around. Then…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":903329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[365721,341325,1582,276,4471,169061,37106,42155,365720,365722,18996,2961,224,5337,6459,365723,6976,255,17823,89748],"class_list":["post-903328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-10-year-old-daughter","tag-allowance","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-child","tag-debit-card","tag-founder","tag-goal","tag-jamie-corum","tag-jennifer-seitz","tag-kid","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-money","tag-naseema-mcelroy","tag-parent","tag-personal-finance","tag-thing","tag-tip-jar"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116839746545522861","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=903328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}