A little girl of 4 asked her father, “Daddy why do we have to put money in the box when we go to meet GOD?” I was curious to know what the dad would reply and I was disappointed to hear him say, ” So that God will take care of us.” A wonderful parenting opportunity had been reduced to lesson on ‘bribing’. The little girl unknowingly was taught that in this world ‘we have to buy favours from everyone, even GOD’!
Today more than ever, kids need to know about money intelligence. An average 8 to 10 year old now owns a computer, a mobile, or an iPad and has access to Internet. Young kids are being bombarded with commercials that urge them to spend money, its time we gave importance to inculcating one more intelligence- money intelligence. Why is money intelligence important?
If you notice most crimes by juveniles are committed for money that is because our kids perceive money as the road to happiness, success, and achievement. This needs to stop and it can only happen when as a society we take it on ourselves to be intelligent about money, to not differentiate or have biases based on how much money we have or others don’t. Today more than ever we need to ensure that we make our kids intelligent about money. It is not only the spending, earning or saving of money that we need to help them focus on, we need to help them learn and imbibe about –
1. What is money?
2. What is it meant for?
3. What are wants and what are needs?
4. Money saving.
5. Money safety.
6. Number and math problems involving money.
7. Different choices that we can make with money.
8. Social and moral issues regarding money.
9. Helping others with money.
Introduce your child early on to the concept of a piggy bank, well it may not always be in the shape of a pig, you get some very cute ones in all shapes and sizes. This is important as in our culture children are gifted money on their birthdays and on important festivals. Make it a culture in your home that all such money has to be deposited by the child in his/her piggy bank.
At home avoid using the term ‘my money’, ‘your money’ as it instills money ownership too soon in kids, ‘our money’ would be a better term. Also avoid comments like, “Daddy and I have to work to earn money for you”, this tends to make kids feel guilty, and it may end up making your child want to steal or start earning money to reduce ‘your burden’.
Today our kids and schools are so burdened with the syllabus of reading, language, maths, science etc. that the essential life skills on which the character of a child are based and completely ignored. This leads to a fractured youth that has incorrect priorities leading to crimes, ranging from small to risky, and those detrimental to self and others. Parents must focus on teaching healthy money habits to children. Ensure that money is not always used to bribe. Make children responsible for money and not the other way around.
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