Since we don’t have a lot of it, we find it important to talk to our kids (mainly our eldest) about money — specifically regarding the important means of aquiring and the careful decision to spend it — while still not bombarding them with financial stress or worry (they’ll have plenty of time for that in about twenty years). I Have found a great article on iVillage entitled “Kids and Money.” The article looked at different parental views on how to address money with their children. Some of the key quotes included:

“Why in the world would you put added stress on your children about the family budget? Our children have grown up knowing that sometimes we have to wait until payday for purchases. That’s as much of the financial situation that they need to know as children. That is what school-kids are — children.”

“My family was poor when we were growing up but we never felt like we were going to end up on the streets. We did hear, “that’s too expensive,” and we wore second-hand clothes. We always felt secure about having a roof over our head and having warm food in our belly. It is important to teach children the value of money, but it isn’t necessary to include them in the family budget.”

“My kids have known about our finances since they were little so that they could understood why we couldn’t do some things. My 18 year-old son has worked since he was 15. He has his own car, keeps up the maintenance and helps pay the insurance on it. He has learned how to handle his own money.”

They have several more kids and money articles that are astute in helping your kids see that there’s a lot more involved than just sticking a card in a machine and taking out as much cash as you want.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006 at 11:21 am and is filed under Parenting, Money Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.