How to Teach Your Kids About Saving for Their Future
Every kid knows what a piggy bank is, and they know that family members usually give them money to put in that bank. But do they truly understand the meaning of saving money? The older your child gets the more they will need to know about investing. When first starting out this may be pretty confusing to your young child. Children often become tired or bored after working on any project for just a few minutes. When it comes to short-term investments, and long-term investments it is hard to know where to start when it comes to trying to teach your children. Especially since many of these things are already confusing to adults, you can imagine how confused children are on this topic. As a parent you are going to give him or her a lifetime skill. They will learn to base their decisions according to goals and not on impulses. Most parents are not interested in becoming investment geniuses, they just want them to understand what they can do with their money. As parents we often entice our kids to save their allowance to get that toy they have always wanted. This slowly begins the process of getting them to understand why we save money. Anything that will help to encourage your child to save will benefit them.
It is also important for your child to understand that they will not instantly start making money from any investment. Children need to understand that things take time to grow. Then you can explain to them that an investment works the same way. But only if the money they have is invested wisely. One suggestion on how to get your child interested in learning about investments, is by using computers, or video games. The right game can teach any child how important it is to invest regularly. Most children’s toy stores like “Toys R US” have plenty of computer games for children of all ages that will help them understand the importance of saving money. They will also need to learn the downside of investing. For example if they make a bad investment it is possible for them to lose money. Most children are not too concerned about investments because they know their parents are there to pick up the slack. Unfortunately many adults also suffer from this problem. Their parents never taught them properly about money and investments and are constantly trying to bail them out.
As parents we usually look back and which that we had mad wiser investments ourselves, or that someone had shown us the right way to invest our money. By teaching your child a few simple lessons about saving and investments can start them off right. It is a very basic lesson if you want something bad enough you will save for it. As your children savings grow from various odd jobs like shoveling snow, or babysitting, you may want to introduce them to other investments such as mutual funds. However you decide to introduce the importance of saving money to your children, the earlier you start the better. Try doing an oline search for websites with resources on teaching your children investments.
