Raising Financially Responsible Children

The Women’s Per­sonal Finance Net­work (of which I am a proud mem­ber) is cur­rently high­light­ing the sub­ject of How to Raise Finan­cially Respon­si­ble Chil­dren.  I have a lot of thoughts on this issue — some of which I’ve already shared on this blog in my Kids and Money cat­e­gory.  Other thoughts will come out in the com­ing weeks and months.

I do con­sider edu­cat­ing my chil­dren on the basics of finance to be a moral imper­a­tive.  As with all sub­jects, I approach the sub­ject of finances from three dif­fer­ent directions.

First, I do my best to con­vey the facts in an unbi­ased and log­i­cal man­ner.  There are many objec­tive facts that chil­dren should be acquainted with before they leave the nest — things like com­pounded inter­est (inter­est you earn and inter­est you pay), bal­anc­ing a check­book, taxes, etc.

Sec­ond, I share with my chil­dren my sub­jec­tive views on all things money and finance.  When should qual­ity trump quan­tity and vice versa?  How impor­tant is money when con­sid­er­ing a career path; how does hav­ing money affect peo­ple and rela­tion­ships and how does not hav­ing any money affect peo­ple and rela­tion­ships?  I try to be hon­est with my kids about what I value; on what I will spend money and will not spend my money on; on what I con­sider to be money well spent and money sorely wasted.

Third, I make an effort to be as frank, objective, and as open as pos­si­ble regard­ing con­flict­ing view­points.  For exam­ple, I choose to not spend any money at all on beauty prod­ucts but I don’t expect, require, or demand my daugh­ter share those same val­ues.  The point of this angle is eval­u­ate how other peo­ple spend their money; to explore and dis­cuss other par­a­digms of fis­cally respon­si­ble behav­ior that dif­fers from the way The Hus­band and I do things.  I’m sure there are many women with dozens of pairs of shoes and a whole array of make-up who live within their means  

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