Buoyed by my newly acquired status as a father, I
have of late been asking myself so many questions with regards to the future of
my lovely daughter. Most of these questions revolve around whether she will at
some day grow to be an independent person who can make sound decisions and take
responsibility for their consequences; I keep on asking myself how i can instil
in her, a working and saving culture at a young age so that even when am not
there for her, she will be able to provide for herself and lead a responsible
life. I know i am not alone in trying to solve this puzzle as many parents will
want to do the same. Apart from my well publicised model on what
the Jews teach their children about money, i recently came about this story
published on the Saturday Nation by Wacheke Nduati which i believe offers
more practical and valuable lessons on teaching Children about work and money.
Here it is...
Children need to learn about money. I look back at
my past financial behaviour and wish that some lessons had hit me harder when I
was in college, high school or even primary school. I am a parent as well and I
realise that if I don’t teach my children what I now know, they will also wish
someone had taught them earlier. If you are not consciously teaching them
something, they are learning from society, which may not always be the right
thing.
You can change that by teaching them simple finance
lessons. No matter what age they are, give them some experiences that will have
an impact on them. I want to share what my husband and I started doing very
recently with our almost four-year-old son, and what we hope to achieve. We
started giving our son a weekly allowance – not for free, but for doing certain
things outside the normal scope of his chores. He therefore earns his allowance
by doing tasks such as making his bed, making sure his dirty clothes are in the
laundry and so forth.
You will obviously have to take into consideration
your child’s age in order to assign age-appropriate tasks. For example it is
fine to give him a reward for making his bed at age four, but by age seven, he
should not get any brownie points for this and his allowance should come from
other tasks. You may have a child who can come up with the weekly shopping
list, arrange your home-office files or even wash your car. You should make the
call on what is expected and what constitutes going the extra mile. The
allowance is for the extra mile.
What do we think this will teach him? That money
can and should be earned.
We also hope it will establish the relationship
between effort and money. To understand that your own effort is what brings in
money is very important.
I think we have a society where too many people feel entitled.
If you are giving your child a healthy allowance with no work on their part,
that sense of entitlement will not disappear at their first job. They will want
to be paid a higher salary without any corresponding change in their effort or
attitude.
We hope that when our son wants something he will
learn to think about what he needs to do rather than who has to give it to him.
The day our son was waiting for finally came. He could go to the piggy bank,
remove his money and buy something. My husband pointed out to him that he could
only remove half the money in the piggy bank. This is to instil the value of
saving and discourage him from spending all the money he has.We hope he will
learn that the sole purpose of earning money is not to spend it immediately.
Delayed gratification is a discipline that will serve your children. Maybe
then when they get a salary they will not live payday-to-payday. Saving, in
their mind, will be automatic.
The last and best lesson came when we were actually
in the shop. I was praying my son does not see something he likes and can
immediately afford. My prayers were answered. He went from toy to toy only to
be told he did not have enough money. Though his numerical understanding at
this age is still minimal, his understanding of toys is not.He realized he
could not afford the big, flashy toys that he wanted. His disappointment was
obvious when he understood the limitation of his finances.However he did eventually find something he liked,
albeit less flashy, and he bought it. He took it up to the cashier himself,
asked how much it was and handed over his money.He was extremely proud to have
bought something for himself with his own money. He also understood what he
would have to do to afford the toys he wanted. He has to do extra tasks for
more weeks.
So he has learnt that he will not be able to afford
everything all the time and will have to compromise. He also learnt that his
discipline paid off.
As we go along I will introduce goal setting, such
as identifying something in particular and working towards that.We also want to
introduce giving to church, to his brother in the form of gifts, and so on. The
piggy bank will also at some point evolve to a bank account, shares and others.
One amazing side effect of this experience is the
conversation; children understand a lot more than we give them credit for. My
son now asks a lot of questions about money, how his parents make money, what
we buy and so forth.Many of us would have benefited from such open, honest
discussions about money when we were growing up. So be thankful to have the
chance to change that with the next generation.
