Handling finances is an essential part of our everyday adult life. As a grown up, did it ever occur to you that you wished if only you were prepared for this as early as a kid? With the ongoing inflation spikes and uncertainties of the economy, I think it’s important we should be able to start introducing these topics to our young ones for them to be prepared in life.
While they might not yet comprehend everything, they will pick up things. If we share this with them with experience, I believe, eventually they will learn and develop then become good habits later on.
Here are some of topics we can start sharing with them:
1. Counting
The foundation of finances of course is learning to count. Aside from learning to count things, start teaching them counting money such as coins and bills. Show children several coins and bills so they can distinguish between them, group them, and then count that particular group. Then you can also teach them to change correctly starting from small bills. There are fun games that they can enjoy playing while learning to count and making change.
Treze Coins
The objective of the game is to identify how many coins you need to insert to the gumball machine based on the price. initially you will be asked to select which set of dominations you will be using in the game. You can select 1, 1 and 10, or 1 and 5 and 10. If you try putting coins that are not the same value as the amount on the top, it will provide a message either ‘Not enough’ or ‘Too much’ so you’ll have a clue. If you also have not enough small denominations you have the option to change your 10s to 1s.
Grocery Cashier
I really enjoyed this game because I remember when I was a kid, I was really interested in how the cash register works and amazed how the cashiers compute fast. In this game, kids can practice addition and subtraction that involve the value of a product and money.
The goal of the game is to enter in the cash register the amount of item the customer is buying, and compute the change based on the customer’s payment.
2. Teach them to save
Spending will probably be a part of your child’s first financial experiences. When you go out with them and purchase either food or things or service. Therefore, it’s critical to instill in kids early on the idea that money shouldn’t just be used for spending, it should also be saved on a regular basis. Saving money isn’t merely a smart financial habit to develop. Saving fosters self-control and delayed gratification, and imparts forethought and goal-setting. You can provide them a piggy bank or bank savings account on their own where they can put away coins or cash.
3. Earning Money
Children need to have their own money and can learn how to make decisions about how to spend it. Allowances can do this. However, you should consider getting your child to do certain tasks to earn some pocket money. In this way they will be able to learn that not everything is free, and most of the time we need to work hard to achieve what we want.
4. Smart Spending
This involves when to spend their earned money wisely. You can start teaching them the difference between necessities and wants. You can give them a situation where they can learn to budget the money they have. For example, they can have this specific budget when you are going out so they can learn to calculate on their own.
5. Teach them the value of giving
One of the most important lessons to teach children is giving, along with how to earn, spend, and save money. They can choose a church, a charitable organization, or even a friend who could use some assistance. Over time, they’ll see that giving has an impact on both the giver and the recipients.
All these important lessons will have a deep impact if a child can see the application in us as adults. To summarize, preach what you teach. Setting a good example is the best teaching tool you can use so that kids can learn.
