It’s hard to believe that school is already back in session! Where did summer go? With my children bringing home backpacks filled with homework every night, it’s a reminder to me that I have homework of my own to instruct them on the important life lesson of managing their money.
Fortunately for them, their dad has some experience managing money. I try (and hope I’m successful) in teaching my children to have a written budget, follow it and to most importantly live within their means. I tell them if you have overdraft fees, you are not within your budget and are spending too much!
There are various ways to initiate teaching kids about money, but I feel it’s important to start early so they have engrained habits as they enter the real world. I asked other members how they teach their children about money, or how they were taught as a child about money. Read on to see what they have to say.
Any financial gifts my daughter receives for special occasions, such as holiday or birthdays, automatically get put into her bank savings account. So any spending money she has on hand is earnings from chores or babysitting. When she is old enough to be able to have a job with wage/W-2 earnings she already knows she will put 50% in her savings account, with 50% for her discretionary spending. She understands that putting money away in her savings account now is for college related spending and other expenses that could arise in her future.
My dad started me with a savings account to get me used to having a bank account and taught me how to use it properly. It sounds simple, but I’m not sure that many parents are doing this today.
I’ve found that kids have to learn to spend money before they can learn to save. If you give a child $5 and he spends it on a cheap toy at the store that breaks very quickly, you now have an opportunity to say, ‘well next time why don’t you save the money until you have $10 and can spend it on a nicer toy instead of something quick at hand.’ Without learning how to spend money first, saving is too conceptual.
When I was a teenager, I was fortunate to get an allowance. However, this allowance was in exchange for many chores, and was never given to me in cash, but in the form of a deposit into a checking account. This was before online banking or apps, so I had to learn how to balance a checkbook to make sure I never spent more than I actually had to spend.
And most everything I wanted to buy had to come from that allowance, so if I spent it all on one silly item at the mall then that was it for the month- no more movies out with my friends unless I found a babysitting job, or was very convincing in why I needed an advance (which rarely happened). A good lesson to learn, and while annoyed at the time, I’m very grateful for the lesson.
4 fun board games to play with your children to teach them about money management
Most of us would have been introduced to a piggy bank as children to learn the importance of savings, perhaps the only way a whole generation of parents used to impart money lessons to their children. It is essential to learn good money habits as children and the sooner you teach your children, the better prepared they will be for the future. There isn’t a fixed age when you should start teaching your children about money.
“Children observe parents very closely and therefore the money behaviour of parents tends to be the biggest source of learning for them. Thus, parents need to act like role models for their children with respect to money matters,” said Vishal Dhawan, founder and CEO, Plan Ahead Wealth Advisors.
Teaching younger children needs to be fun and you as a parent need to ensure the money concepts are simple and not verbose in nature. Engaging them through fun board games can be a good way to get your child interested in money concepts. “Games can be very good for teaching concepts like using money for emergencies rather than hoarding, saving and investing in stocks, real estate and banks, and using money sensibly,” said Dhawan.
There are several board games available in the market today that can help your child grasp money concepts better.
Here are four popular board games that you can buy for your children.
Monopoly
Price: ₹ 599 onwards
Availability: Funskool, Amazon, Flipkart, Hamleys
Suitable for: 8 years and above
This is one of the most popular board games related to money. Here, the player typically buy cities using the money they get from the bank.
The player can later build properties like houses and hotels on the cities they own. The player receives rent if another player lands on the property during the die throw. The rent of the city keeps increasing as more and more properties are built. All the money collected from the players goes to the bank and the banker (usually one of the players) keeps track of all the money that needs to be paid or received.
The game can often get heated up as players carefully plan and use their money judiciously to buy cities and build more properties. The player may have to mortgage or even sell the property to the bank if he doesn’t have sufficient money to pay the taxes or rent to other players. So the player has to, at all times, strategise well and manage both the properties and the cash in hand efficiently.
Time and Money
Price: ₹ 699 onwards
Availability: Skillmatics, Amazon, Hamleys
Suitable for: 6-9 years
This game is meant only for children and teaches them about money and time management by engaging them in fun activities. There are a total of 15 activities packed into a single game.
The money activities expose them to the concept of money, savings, spending and so on. For example, in one of the activities, there are three piggy banks with coins of different denominations listed in each one. The child has to calculate and write down the total money in each piggy bank and choose the one that has the maximum amount. In another activity, the child has ₹ 1,500 and he has to shop at the school stationary store that has products on sale.
The child has to first calculate how much the products cost after discount and then decide if he wants to buy it or not. Since the money is limited, the child is encouraged to prioritise what he wants to buy and what he wants to leave out. Overall, the game teaches children about time and money management, concepts of savings through estimation, mental maths and critical thinking.
The Game of Life
Price: ₹ 649
Availability: Amazon, Flipkart, Funskool, Hamleys
Suitable for: 8 years and above
The more the number of players, the more interesting this game gets. The game involves spinning a wheel on the board and following the instructions that come along with every move. While Monopoly helps children understand money management in terms of buying assets and making investments, The Game of Life teaches them how financial planning is necessary to lead a smooth life.
The game teaches planning for one’s career, marriage, personal security such as home and automobile insurance policies, children and retirement. It involves a designated bank which teaches players how a financial institution works in terms of lending and payments.
The game also teaches money management as after a player receives her monthly salary she has to pay utility and other bills. Once all players have retired, they count their money. The one who retires in the millionaire mansion with maximum wealth is the winner.
Payday
Price: ₹ 1,999
Availability: Hamleys
Suitable for: 8 years and above
This board game looks similar to a monthly calendar and is numbered 1 to 31. The players decide at the beginning how many months (rounds) do they wish to play for. One of the players has to volunteer to become the banker and one should be the loan keeper. Each player gets a salary on pay day, 31st of every month. You then clear all the pending bills and outstanding loan interest. You also withdraw money for the month from your savings account.
The game has a deck of mail and deal cards. If you land on “deal” or “mail”, you pick the card and do as instructed. Mail cards usually involve paying repair bills, insurance premiums, getting a lottery ticket, mails from loved ones, junk advertisements and so on. Deal cards include deals that you can buy cheap and later sell for a higher price if you land on “found a buyer” when you throw the die. If a player doesn’t have the money to buy the deal, he can take a loan from the bank at an interest rate or borrow from other players after negotiation.
In the end, the player with the maximum cash in hand or with the least debt, wins. The game is a good way to teach children how a typical monthly household functions. It also teaches children to make smart money deals, manage money, and keep track of loans and interest to be paid to the bank.
Explaining finance in a kid-friendly way can be challenging. To help, i would suggest you children’s book series about money, which is an amazing book that teaches kids finance through story. The books also include lessons, questions, and activities to bring finance into the real world.
3 Money Management Lessons Parents Can Teach Their Children
Parenthood is a truly amazing experience. In essence, as parents, you are responsible for a tiny, helpless human being. Over time, your children do grow up and become self sufficient, but, as parents, you are very influential in the type of people your children become.
“Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” (NIV) While the Bible may not be speaking specifically about finances in this verse, money matters are a part of life. Teaching money management skills is an important area that should not be overlooked as we prepare our children for life on their own.
There are several financial lessons that you can share with your children. Here are three quick ideas that we can teach our children.
Proper allocation of financial increase
Every time that we get paid, there are numerous things that we have planned for those funds. While the tendency is to pay our bills and squeeze in some fun time, we want to make sure that we are teaching our children the biblical way to allocate our increase. Tithing should come first. The tithe is 10% of all of our increase. It is our way of thanking God for providing the resources and helping to further His Kingdom.
On top of that, we should also make sure to pay ourselves. The general rule of thumb is 10-10-80. We tithe 10%. We put 10% into savings. We spend the remaining 80%.
Our children should understand this concept from their first dollar. Break it up into 10 dimes. Have them decorate 3 jars, one for each category. Have them put one dime in the tithe jar, one dime in the savings jar, and the remaining dimes in the spending jar. Let them know that they are free to distribute the 80% however they wish. But there should be no diversion of funds from the first two jars.
Money should be earned
How many of us are able to pull funds out of an ATM at our leisure? It’s not very likely, right? If we don’t put money in, then it will be difficult to pull money out. In the same manner, we should teach our children that we are not walking ATMs with an infinite access to cash. Every dollar that we give them for their needs and wants comes from the hours that we put in at work. We work for the money we bring home. In turn, we should teach them to work for the money they hope to use to buy the things they enjoy.
Delayed gratification
We live in a microwave society. We want everything right now. However, we are not able to get everything that we want when we want it. You should not give your children a false sense of reality, either. Sometimes, you have to save money for long periods of time in order to build up enough money to get things that you want.
Teach kids about money and how to plan ahead and aim for big goals. Help them create a dream board and show them how to save up for those things. It will help their motivation and prepare them for a successful financial outlook in adulthood.
Top 10 financial tips for parents to teach children in 2021
It is very important to make reality check for children by parents. The parents should give financial advice to their children in their initial years. It is important to note that, as a parent, you should know the importance of financial education for kids. You must also agree that financial skills are essential for controlling your lifestyle better and it is quite surprising that our schools do not teach children about money.
What are the vital tips to teach your young children financial responsibility? What are the easy ways to to teach your kids about money? What are the financial literacy tips that all kids must acquire? In the steps that are given below, it will your kids to learn how to save and manage money.
Value of money
It is important for the parents to know that the children should acquire necessary skills to understand basic monetary concepts. In addition, if youngsters learn how to spend wisely and donate money, they will develop patience and planning skills.
Must Save Money
After learning about money, the next important task for parents to teach their children is the importance of saving time in order to secure the future. In addition, they should teach them about importance of savings.
To Count Money
The primary step for parents to help their children acquainted with money is to make them count the money which will also help them get mathematics lessons. In addition, it is important to understand that most kids like money because they know you need money to buy things you want.
Earn Extra Money
A vital tip for parents to know that is one of the best ways for children to learn the essential life skill of money management is for them to earn and be responsible for their own money. In addition, it will help the children to understand the importance of earning money.
Give Pocket Money
It is important for parents to know that the main reason for giving pocket money is to help children learn to manage money while they are young and you can still guide them. In addition, this will also teach your children aspects of responsibility in life which is very important.
Should Donate Money
One of the best changes that is happening is many parents are using the destruction delivered by these catastrophes as an opportunity to help children learn about charity and the importance of reaching out to others in their time of need. This helps them to tech kids that all in the world are not as fortunate as them.
Do Expect Less
It is one of the vital mistakes that parents do. As because parents love their children and want the best for them, they worry about them a lot. In addition, to understand that, the children will not understand all the things that you are teaching them.
Teach Money Management
it is important to know that, wise financial planning encourages wise spending and saving for the future. In addition, remember to always shop with a list as shopping with a list helps children understand how prior preparation can lead to great savings in the end.
Child Savings Accounts
Open a kids savings bank account to secure their future. In addition, the parents should know that instead of merely telling your son or daughter that saving is important, consider opening a jointly owned savings account to teach good money habits.
Grandparents’ Money Lessons
Grandparents have loads of experience and know the skills to manage children and finances. For that mater, as a grandparent, you can teach your grandkids important financial lessons that their parents cannot be able to teach them in any way.
Things to Remember:
Along with investing in your children, teaching them about the different aspects of money in the early age is also a vital part of investing in the child’s future as it will help them lead their life better. It is very understandable that teaching little kids about money is not an easy task and you need to be very patient but if you want your children to understand how to successfully manage their money when they get older, it is very important task that parents must do.
Financial education is on the agenda again. You probably know the sales pitch: customers who know about financial concepts, products and transactions will find it easier to build the skills needed to function well in the financial marketplace. Financial education – ideally starting at an early age and continuing into working life – will lead to financial literacy, which in turn leads to good financial behaviour and improved wellbeing for individuals and households.
In other words, being financially literate makes you better off. But is that too simple, and is education alone enough to protect citizens in today’s financial marketplace? Recent crises have revealed that the financial sector is very complex and that one needs a particular set of skills to navigate it. Several surveys conducted after the crisis showed that the level of financial literacy among citizens is generally very low, even among those most directly affected by the financial crisis.
This ignorance about finance is unsurprising given the complexity of modern financial markets and products. The financial crisis has, however, provided an excellent motivation for citizens to become more involved in financial regulation: with more understanding about how the system works, they can exert influence and help to change it.
Financial illiteracy is a serious problem in even the most developed countries. In the United States, a 2015 study by financial regulator FINRA concluded that American citizens typically had “difficulty applying financial decision-making skills to real life situations”, and nearly two-thirds could not pass a basic financial literacy test.[1] The study looked at making ends meet, planning ahead, managing financial products, financial knowledge and decision-making.
The results are striking because US citizens are more accustomed than most to taking care of their personal finances and are generally more eager to play on the stock market. An international survey of financial literacy published this month (OECD/INFE International Survey of Adult Financial Literacy Competencies, 12 October 2016) found that overall levels of financial literacy across 30 countries were “relatively low”, with particular weaknesses around people’s ability to understand concepts such as compound interest and the benefits of diversification. The average score across all participating countries and economies was just 13.2 (out of a possible 21), and 13.7 across OECD countries.
Education as a solution
So far in Europe, policymakers have taken an interventionist approach, applying strict rules on consumer protection and conduct. But they have not stopped financial institutions from luring unsophisticated customers into investing in very complex products. Would tackling financial illiteracy have helped to plug this gap?
We all know that educated people are better off than uneducated ones but what does being educated mean? According to Harvard University’s list of skills that make an educated person, the top qualities are the ability to define problems without a guide, ask hard questions which challenge prevailing assumptions, quickly assimilate needed data from masses of irrelevant information, conceptualize and reorganize information into new patterns, think inductively, deductively and dialectically and attack problems heuristically.
Now let’s assume that European citizens already have the skills above and add finance to the mix. According to the OECD, financial literacy is a combination of awareness, knowledge, skill, attitude and the behaviour necessary to make sound financial decisions and ultimately achieve individual financial wellbeing. As well as understanding financial concepts and being able to interpret financial data, it can be viewed as an expanding set of knowledge, skills and strategies, which individuals build on throughout life.
“Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime” Chinese proverb. However none of the traditional approaches to financial literacy that the studies looked at (via employer, school, credit counselling, community based…) have generated strong evidence that financial literacy efforts have had positive and substantial impacts.
This has wider implications. Decisions about saving and investing obviously have a profound effect on the financial well-being of individual consumers but collectively those same decisions shape our national economic outcomes. As the financial choices facing consumers become more complex, driven by changes in financial products and consumers’ circumstances, we should always keep in mind that the cost of consumers’ mistakes is borne not only by individuals but by the whole economy.
It follows that if it is hard for the average citizen to make sensible saving and investing decisions, everyone loses. Those designing financial literacy programs therefore need to build in a few basic objectives, including:
levelling the playing field between financial end users and product manufacturers,
equipping financial end users to navigate a complex and fast changing global economy,
minimizing the probability of future crises (remember sub-prime).
Changing the European model
Consumers in Europe’s debt-fuelled economy are encouraged to engage in cross-border shopping for products and services, thus exercising their political and economic roles as citizens in the functioning of the internal market. The European Commission is keen for this single market to grow to include citizens managing their own financial wellbeing. American consumers already do this in their working years and in retirement, and the EC sees clear benefits in this shift.
This explains the EC’s enthusiasm for European citizens to develop capital market savvy (as described in its Action Plan on Building a Capital Markets Union) because it wants to move retail savings and unlock the capital markets. The former financial services Commissioner, Jonathan Hill, said during the Commission’s Public Hearing on the Retail Finance Green Paper that “… by definition, retail investors and consumers lie at the heart of this project (CMU).
They do so because they provide the pools of capital the financial service industry needs to invest. So the more we deepen the single market for the financial products that consumers buy, the more investment we can unlock. And of course for them as consumers, we could improve the quality of services and reduce the prices they have to pay.”
But before consumers go on a financial shopping spree, they first need to take responsibility for financial management and be more financially literate. In this view, financial education for kids could be seen as an important tool for governments seeking to introduce changes in social policy objectives.
The financial industry is, of course, strongly in favour of this. According to the European Banking Federation “…it is easy to be passionate about financial education. When you look at the potential it is clear that there are tangible benefits for many. Financial education is about helping people make well-informed choices, about encouraging financial responsible behaviour. There is plenty of evidence that proves that people who are financially literate are more likely to succeed in life.”
Kids And Money: The Essential Guide To Financial Literacy For Kids
How good are you at managing your money? Are you good at it or do you wish you could be better? No matter how you answer those questions, you probably want your kids to be at least as good if not better with their money than you are. This is why you should make financial literacy for kids a priority in your family.
As a mom or dad, you’ve probably learned a few lessons about managing your money, even if you wish your own financial knowledge were better. Money Management for children is also an important factor, try to teach them about money management so that they do not have to face any difficulties in the future. Children start learning about money at a young age. They see you pay for things. They learn about coins, with even a penny being an exciting find when they’re young. There’s so much more to teach them, of course.
Preschool
This is the age when kids are becoming aware of money. It’s time to take their first small steps in financial literacy. Help them become aware of the role money plays in the everyday life of your family.
Talk About Earning Money
Kids need to know that the family’s money comes from one or both parents working. It doesn’t just appear from nowhere. You don’t need to tell small children what you earn – they have no concept of numbers that big and it would seem like unlimited money to them even if you struggle to pay all of your bills. But you can explain to young children that adults have to work to get the money they need for their home, food, and more.
Talk About How You Spend Money
Take your children grocery shopping so they can see how you decide to spend money. Explain why you make a decision in the store when it’s based on cost. This is something you can keep doing as they grow, giving more information as they get older and more able to understand why the difference matters.
Within reason, you can tell your kids when you decide to not spend money because you can’t afford it. You don’t want young children to worry about the family not having enough money, but they should understand that you have to make smart financial decisions. Sometimes that means eating at home rather than eating out, or skipping a treat they might have gotten otherwise.
Let Them Spend Money
If you’re getting your child a treat at the store, give them the cash to pay for it. If they have money someone else gave them as a gift, let them pay for whatever they choose to spend that money on. Kids can have a hard time learning that they don’t just give the cashier the money and walk away. I had to remind my kids several times to get their change when they were little, even though they had been reminded to expect it. Their concept of money had little to do with the amount the cashier said or what they handed to the cashier. Accepting their own change back helped them begin to understand that there was more to it than “give the cashier your money.”
Don’t Give Them Everything They Want
Kids want so much. This toy, that treat, hey can we go there? When you can afford to do it, it’s tempting to let them have what they want. That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Don’t give your kids everything they want, especially not right away. Teach them that some things must be earned, while other things need to wait for the right time.
If there’s a toy they really, really want, have them wait until they’ve saved enough money for it or have them put it on a wishlist for a birthday or holiday. Kids don’t need lots of new toys throughout the year. The lesson in patience will be far more valuable. An even better lesson is learned if they decide they really didn’t want the toy before they get it. You know how often kids change interests when they’re young, and there’s always the next desperately wanted toy coming up.
Help Your Kids Save Money
If your child doesn’t already have a piggy bank, get one. There are all kinds of fun options, from the traditional pig shaped ones to banks that count how much money is put into them. I find simpler piggy banks better for young children. While it’s nice for a child to be able to look at their bank and know how much is in there, it’s a better lesson for them to have to count the money out to see what they have. This helps them learn the names and values of the different coins, and how to add them up.
Elementary School
In elementary school, kids should start learning more about money. They should hear about some basics at school, such as the names and values of the coins, but you may have started them on that already. Your kids should continue to increase their financial literacy in elementary school in several ways.
Decide How Your Kids Will Earn Money At Home
To give an allowance or make it money that your kids earn is something parents can argue extensively about. There are good points to both sides. Some parents prefer to give an allowance regardless of what chores have been done to demonstrate that your chores are something you do because you’re a part of the family. They believe that’s the most important lesson.
Other parents prefer to pay kids based on the chores they do because you aren’t just given money when you’re an adult – you have to earn it. They believe that’s the most important lesson. And of course, there are paths between. Some parents may give a base allowance, with extra for chores beyond the basics.
I’m not concerned with how any one family gives their kids money. The big recommendation I have is that you don’t give them too much. Make sure that they have to save up when they want something special. If they never have to think about whether they can afford something or not, they aren’t learning the most important lessons of all about money management.
Help Them Plan Their Saving And Spending
Kids in this age range should be saving up for the bigger things they want to have. You can help them figure out how to do that, especially when they also want something they can afford right now. Kids are great impulse shoppers, so it’s the perfect time to teach them to get that under control.
Talk to them about the best way to get each of the things they want. It will take time for kids to learn that even little purchases such as a candy bar at the store add up over time and make it harder to reach their big goals.
Teach Your Kids About Giving To Charity
Elementary school age can be a great time to teach your kids about giving to charity. This doesn’t have to mean money, however! You can also teach them to give their time to a favorite cause. My kids and I, for example, volunteer at a local animal shelter. We help with the laundry and help socialize the cats so they’re friendly and ready for a new home. This costs us time rather than money, but we love the cause.
In many ways, it’s easier for kids to give money to a cause, if only because the volunteer opportunity for young children are limited. Most animal shelters have strict age minimums, often somewhere in the teens. It is possible that they can find a retirement home that welcomes young visitors or that your kids can help with a park cleanup – while supervised by you, of course! Giving money to charity is a good idea as well, of course. Children should learn that these causes need money to do the good things they do, not just volunteers.
For most college freshmen, they’re all the experiences you might expect beginning your first semester. With all that (and more) on your collegiate plate, it’s easy to forget that it’s also the time to start getting serious about your finances. Living on campus, away from home for the first time, being financially responsible can seem as foreign a concept as anything in the classes you’re taking. And unfortunately, most colleges don’t have a 101 class in financial literacy.
Anything from racking up a large credit card bill to borrowing too much in student loans are mistakes that can cause some major college freshman stress (and make you go broke).
Precisely the following teachings are intended to provide parents with guidelines to Teach Teens About Money, which will undoubtedly be at stake for the rest of their lives.
1. Talk with your parents
Now that you’re off to college and totally independent, asking your parents for advice may be the last thing you want to do. But don’t be afraid to ask mom or dad about any of these subjects yourself if you’re motivated to learn about personal finance. Try to arrange some time with them to chat about how to start saving money, learning about interest (earning it and owing it), and most of all, the basics of your student loans.
2. Budget, budget, budget
Keeping a monthly budget of what you earn and what you spend can help make you aware of where your money is going, since losing track of it can quickly leave you with no money left. A budget doesn’t have to be anything detailed or super involved. If you have a part-time job, list what you earn each week, and then budget for how much you’ll allow yourself to spend in a month. (Use an app!) Give yourself some allowance money for going to the movies or eating out with friends; with your budget, you’ll be able to work with those dollar amounts and experiment with cutting back on spending. Always budget for necessary items, like toiletries, school supplies or other items that arise by need. The best advice I can give you: Stick with your budget.
3. Apps are your best friends
If you know that a budget on paper is sure to get lost in the shuffle of class notes, take advantage of budgeting apps on your smartphone to manage and save your money. Our favorite is You Need A Budget (YNAB), since it automatically connects your bank accounts together to give you a full, rounded picture of your spending. Other apps like Mint, Level, BUDGT, and others make budgeting fun, organized and easy to understand if a spreadsheet is too unapproachable, intimidating or just feels like something you’d do in class.
4. Start building your credit
One way not to use a credit card is to go to the mall and buy everything in sight, thinking that it’s “free money.” Since college is the first step to becoming a finance-conscious adult, take this time to learn about credit, not just credit cards. If you have no credit, it’s time to start establishing it. Try applying for a secured or student credit card. If you’re approved, you’ll need to make a cash deposit; this becomes your credit limit that you can borrow against. Keep your spending limit low – use it only for your Netflix subscription, cell phone bill or eating out once a week. Pay your monthly balance on the due date, in full (never partial), and over time, you’ll start building positive creditworthiness that will help you buy a car or house after graduation.
5. Buy used books
With the average cost of college books at about $1,200, we’d encourage you to buy used whenever possible. Remember that other students are thinking the same thing, so buy your books as early as possible before used copies get sold out. You can even email your professors before the start of the semester to get names of the required texts. Amazon and Textbooks.com are also two resources to buy and sell used books. In my college days, I’d always ask my professors if I could purchase an older edition of the class text to save money. Updates to new editions are often so minor that they don’t justify the full cost charge by textbook publishers.
6. Beware of ID theft
Over 13.1 million people were victims of identity theft last year, and college students are no exception. On a college campus, you could have your personal information stolen anywhere from the dining hall to the library to your own dorm room, on your laptop. Don’t let friends or roommates borrow your credit card; in fact, never carry your cards to and from class unless you’re certain you’ll be buying something along the way.
Protect your logins with strong passwords nobody will guess, and change them often. (The same goes for tablets and smartphones.) When using public WiFi, always log in to a secured network to protect your activity from ID thieves and scammers. And remember to completely log out when using a school lab computer – it’s likely that your Facebook status won’t be the only thing at risk if you don’t.
7. Remember your student loans
One of the most financially literate things you can do in college is to stay mindful of your student loans from day one. Find out what kinds of loans you have, and how much you or your parents have borrowed. Are they federal or private? Subsidized or unsubsidized? What are your interest rates?
You might even consider starting to pay them off early before they’re due, even if it’s just the interest. There’s no rule when you can start, so if you’re an ambitious freshman, even a few dollars here and there counts. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to meet up with your student advisor or make a visit to the financial aid office on campus.
8. Take advantage of student discounts
When it comes to financial literacy, college is the one time where being a student gives you countless chances to get discounts and save money where other adults need to pay full price. Diners, restaurants, movie theaters, cafes, concert venues and other places often offer discounts when you bring a valid student ID.
Keep your grades up and you may qualify for discounts on everything from insurance rates to airfare. Don’t ignore the perks and pluses on campus that come with being a student. Picking the right meal plan, for instance, can help save money if you live on campus. And if you’re a resident student who doesn’t commute, consider leaving your car at home to save money on gas, maintenance and insurance.
9. Save smartly
If you do nothing else with your money this semester (or the next four years), remember to save money. Like studying, you’ll want to save smarter, not harder. It’s already difficult enough to make ends meet as a poor college student, so how can you come up with enough to save?
Use the power of interest to build on your deposits – open up a bank account that rewards dividends, like a certificate of deposit (CD) or high-yield savings account with a higher interest rate. If you’re working on campus or off, you might also have a portion of your pay automatically deposited into your savings, reducing the temptation to spend it.
Going to college, picking a major and getting your degree aren’t the only things you’ll need to prepare you for adulthood once you graduate. By putting some of these financial tips into practice, you’ll be ready for when it comes time to pay off your student loans, buy a house, budget for a family and other big financial responsibilities on the horizon.
Are your kids ready to start earning money for themselves? As a parent, it can be worrisome trying to find a good first-time work environment for your son or daughter. Studies show that parents—not the media and not peers—carry the most weight when it comes to teaching kids about money. In a recent study of millennials by Bank of America and USA Today, 58% of those interviewed cited their parents’ advice or example as most influential in how they handle their own finances. Good news! There are many great ways for your kids to make some extra cash – even your younger kids!
1. Babysitting
Once your kid is old enough, he or she might be interested in taking care of younger kids. Sometimes the best way for someone to “practice” babysitting is by having them watch their siblings or relatives for a short amount of time. Once they get comfortable and responsible enough, they could start making money from it. Babysitting is a great and enjoyable way for reliable kids to make some money.
2. Lemonade Stand
If your son or daughter is too young to be working on their own and only want to make money for fun, a lemonade stand could be a nice summer activity to keep them occupied. Selling lemonade might not leave them with big bucks, but it’s a great way to introduce your child to what a job might be like, how to interact with customers and the basics of money management. Create a plan for the money earned and help your child stick to the plan.
3. Mowing Lawns
There are always people looking for others to mow their lawn. This is perfect for your independent and outdoorsy child who’s looking for a summer job. Your kids could mow lawns on their own, and if they really enjoy it, they could upgrade their equipment from a push mower to a riding mower. This is a job that can be started when they are young and continue upgrading throughout high school.
4. Run Errands
The lives of adults can become pretty hectic, leaving little time for trips to the grocery store. An easy and enjoyable job for one of your 16+ kids could be running errands for others. Although not many people are actively looking for someone to run errands for them, it’s something many adults would be on board with if someone asked. If someone you know lives an extremely busy life or could use the extra help, have your son or daughter reach out and ask them if they can do anything to assist them.
5. Coaching
If your teen enjoys sports and is looking for a way to make some money, coaching might be the job for them. Lots of little league or YMCA teams need coaches for young kids’ soccer, baseball or football teams. This also teaches your teenager great leadership skills!
Having a job at an early age will provide your child with many valuable life lessons like communication, responsibility and hard work. Open a savings account for your child, so they can store their hard-earned money!
Positive parenting and positive discipline focuses on teaching good behavior and teaching money management to children using kind and firm parenting techniques. Here are some simple tips to parent positively to create a peaceful home and happy family.
Why Parents Should Use Positive Discipline
How to discipline effectively? Every parent grapples with this issue. If you have young kids, you know how every day can be a struggle if your child doesn’t behave. Even the most patient and nurturing parents can sometimes lose it when facing a defiant little human.
Consider this: A 3 year old preschooler is throwing a tantrum because Dad poured the gravy on her turkey instead of letting her do it herself. She throws up her hands, thrashing back and forth, screaming and crying for what seems like hours. Out of frustration, the Dad shouts, “Stop screaming NOW!”
Many of us are guilty of having done this more often than we’d like to admit. So how should we discipline our kids without falling into such a “Do as I say, not as I do” trap?
What Is Positive Parenting?
Positive parenting is a set of parenting techniques based on the work of Viennese psychiatrists, Alfred Adler and Rudolf Dreikurs. In recent years, Jane Nelsen Ed.D. refined and championed this method in her famous series of positive discipline books and made positive parenting techniques well known.
Positive parenting strategies emphasize the importance of mutual respect and positive instructions to discipline. Positive parenting focuses on teaching future behavior instead of punishing past misbehavior. Studies consistently show that using positive discipline yields better outcomes in terms of the child’s behavior, emotional growth, academic performance and mental health.
Positive Parenting Tips
Here’s a list of positive parenting tips and positive discipline techniques.
TIP 1: FOCUS ON THE REASONS BEHIND THE BEHAVIORS
There is always a reason why children misbehave, even though the reason may seem silly to the parents. It is reasonable for the child and that’s why they behave that way. If parents can address the cause directly, even if the child doesn’t get what they want, they would at least feel that their needs are acknowledged. Having emotional support from the family is often more important than having the actual request met. An acknowledged child can move on without the need to misbehave. They may still be grumpy, but they do not need to act out once they feel understood.
Ask questions and get to the core of the problem. Knowing the reason behind the behaviors can also help parents avoid them in the first place. For example, a child hit his brother. The reason could be that her little brother took away her toy and she was frustrated. So teaching the younger child to ask for permission before taking someone else’s things will prevent the issue from arising. Besides, it’s good manners.
If your child seems to never listen to you, there are two main possible reasons.
One reason may be because your expectation is not reasonable. Examine what you ask your child to do/not to do. Is it an order or a request with a good reason? It’s easier for a child to accept a good explanation, especially one that is related to their well-being, than to follow an order blindly. Another possible reason for disobedience is a lack of a close parent-child relationship, which forms the foundation for a child’s growth, development and future success.
TIP 2: USE KIND AND FIRM DISCIPLINE. NO NEED TO BE MEAN TO MEAN BUSINESS.
Be kind to model how to be kind and respectful to others.
Children learn by mimicking others and parents are their primary role models. When a parent yells, humiliates or calls a child names, the child learns to do the same when they’re upset. The converse is also true. When a parent is kind and respectful despite being upset, the child learns to deal with difficulties with composure and respect. Being kind also helps a child to calm down, be receptive to reasoning and more likely to cooperate.
5 Positive Parenting Techniques You Can Use in 2020
1. Get to the Root of the Behavior
Positive parenting experts worldwide can agree on this: there is always something motivating a child’s negative or disruptive behavior. So that tantrum over the blue plate? It wasn’t a random display of poor judgment – it was motivated by something intrinsically in your child. Whether that was a lack of skills in managing his big feelings, a desire to get your attention, or a power play to assert his free will – there’s always a reason for the behavior. (Even if he doesn’t realize it – and most times he doesn’t!) The thing to remember is the behavior itself is simply the symptom. Our challenge as parents is figuring out what’s really underneath that frustrating behavior.
It would make things MUCH easier if your child could simply say, “Mommy, I would really like some one-on-one attention with you when I have you all to myself. Is there a time we can do that this evening?” But we all know this is an absurd expectation. So instead, children push our buttons as a way to gain our attention, albeit negative. Because the truth is, if a child doesn’t receive our attention in positive ways, (when they don’t have to beg for or demand it) they will find ways to get any attention they can, even it’s negative.
Picture yourself as a detective. When a child begins to act out, ask yourself “What is this child trying to accomplish through his actions?” If he had the verbal skills and emotional awareness, “What would he be trying to tell me with this behavior? Once you identify the root cause of the issue, you can become a more PROACTIVE parent and preempt the outbursts from happening in the first place.
For example, imagine you have to take an important call but while you’re on the phone, your children decide it’s a great time to start a wrestling match. While still trying to sound engaged in the phone conversation, you give your kids the “if you don’t stop this right now I’m going to lose it when I’m done” look – but to no avail. You continue with the non-verbal shushing as you run from one room to the next searching for quiet, but the wrestling match seems to follow you. It’s exhausting. And by the end of the phone call you feel like you just ran 5 miles.
The goal behind that wrestling match – that just happened to start the minute you got on the phone – was most likely intended to get your attention and push your buttons. They knew you were trapped on the phone and unable to intervene, so it became the perfect time to act up, getting your attention in negative ways. Use this as a learning experience and now PROACTIVELY PREPARE for the next time you need to take a call. 20 minutes before your phone call, say to your kiddos, “Hey guys, mommy has to get on the phone in 20 minutes. Before I do that, I would LOVE to play a game with you all!”
During those 20 minutes leading up to the call, give your children undivided attention. You can give them reminders leading up to the call like “Wow! I love playing games with you. Once mommy is finished with her call, I’d love to play again!” When it comes time for the call, give your children a choice – “Mommy needs to get on her call now. Would you like to watch a show or play quietly with your legos while I’m on the phone?”
Also give them a way to “tell you something” if something they view as urgent comes up while you’re on the call. Leave a pad of paper nearby so they write or draw whatever they wanted to tell you as soon as your call is finished. Chances are that if you fill their attention buckets ahead of time and lay out clear expectations, your children will be much better behaved the next time you need to take a call.
2. Be Consistent
While parents intellectually understand the importance of consistency, the truth is, life happens – school is canceled, plans change, additions are made to the calendar last-minute. While we can’t always control life happening, it’s best to maintain consistent routines, schedules, and expectations in your home the majority of the time.
How is your morning routine? If your children are expected to make their beds, brush their teeth and get dressed before eating breakfast, then maintain this routine every day.
PRO TIP: Maintain the SAME schedule on weekends and holidays. That way, you won’t have to experience the backslide that comes on Monday morning!
Do you maintain firm technology “policies?”What happens if your kids don’t respect your family rules for technology? To be the positive parent you strive to be, it’s essential that technology rules are clearly communicated and that kids know the consequence if those rules are broken. If kids refuse or “forget” to turn off the video game when time is up, follow through each and every time with the previously discussed consequence. When parents are consistent with the rules and consequences, kids are much less likely to push the limits.
If you’re experiencing a lot of nagging and negotiating from your child because of inconsistency in the past, you can end it with 3 simple words, and get back on track.
3. Say No to Rewards
Parents who are unfamiliar with positive parenting techniques are often surprised when I discourage them from using rewards. After all, rewards sound positive, but the truth is they do more harm than good and can lead to a major dose of entitlement down the road.
Parenting is a marathon, not a sprint. When making discipline decisions for your kids, it’s important to keep your long-term goals in mind. Rewards are ineffective because they only offer short-term gain.
Think about it..maybe today you rewarded your child with a cookie for behaving well in the grocery store, but what will she expect next time? At least one cookie, right? Maybe even two?Will a similar reward be expected during the next doctor’s office visit or trip to the mall?
Or perhaps you bribed your picky eater to eat their vegetables by offering ice cream for dessert? Now that he knows vegetables can be sold for the price of ice cream, it only makes sense he would hold out on eating his greens until he’s offered ice cream or another equally appealing sweet reward.
Using rewards as a bargaining chip for the desired behavior is a slippery slope to an attitude of entitlement.
4. Focus on what you can control – YOURSELF
Oh my friends, this one is tough, especially in the heat of the moment. But, if you remember that there’s always a REASON for the behavior AND your children have free will, then you can begin to respond appropriately.
After all, there is a level of emotional freedom that is found when parents realize “I can’t always control my kids, but I can control my responses.”
Sure, some parents might be able to scare their kids into behaving properly or threaten punishment to achieve a short-sighted goal, but at the end of the day – each child will grow into an adult who has full control over their life decisions.
So instead of overpowering children, or bribing, or shaming them into making good decisions, I encourage parents to reframe their perception of the child. Instead of thinking of him as a misbehaving child, view him as a little person who simply hasn’t been equipped with the right tools to behave appropriately in a given situation. By doing this, parents will be better prepared to handle the misbehaviors.
One way parents can control their responses is to decide what you’re willing to do AHEAD OF TIME. This works great for getting kids to take on responsibilities they’re perfectly capable of or you nag them about, but they normally just don’t do – emptying backpacks or lunchboxes, putting laundry in the hamper, cleaning up toys, etc.
Let’s use lunchboxes as an example.
Start by deciding what you’re willing to do, and what age-appropriate responsibility needs to be on your kids’ shoulders.
In a calm moment, reveal in advance, “I’m happy to make you a lunch every morning for school, as long as your lunchbox has been emptied out, and it’s on the shelf in the pantry or on the counter. If the lunchboxes are clean and in their place, I’m happy to make your lunch. If it’s not cleaned out or not in its place, it’ll be up to you to make your own lunch.”
Then ask, “Is there anything you’d like to do to help yourself remember to unload your lunchbox and put it in the pantry?” (He might want to make a sign in pictures or words to remind himself since you will not be reminding.)
5. Discipline, Don’t Punish
One of the biggest differentiators between positive parenting techniques and other parenting methods is the focus on discipline over punishment. Discipline means “to train by instruction and exercise” while punish means “to inflict a penalty for (an offense, fault, etc.)” or “to handle severely or roughly.” Experts say that paying a small amount, however infrequently, can help in providing financial education to kids
By teaching our children the appropriate ways to behave without using blame, shame and pain forms of punishment, we equip and empower them to be competent and capable young adults. When you are considering a response to an offense – just like with rewards – think long-term.
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Tim Connolly 