There are many schools of thought when it comes to teaching children about finances.  It seems to me that a very large percent of PF bloggers and mainstream parents ascribe to a “the sooner the better” philosophy.  This is no surprise to me since our society at-large tends to take this stance on everything related to children.  The sooner they read, the better.  The sooner they start talking, the better.  The sooner they wean, walk, start school (fill in the blank), the better.

It may not surprise my regular readers to learn that I do not ascribe to this school of thought.  I think that children are children.  They are not miniature adults.  And they are not even miniature adults-in-training.

To my thinking, finance and money issues belong in the adult world.  They are adult issues.  And I feel very strongly that we do our children no favors by introducing them to the complexities of finances at an early age, much less the stresses, worries, and ethical issues relating to money.

I believe a child’s work is to play, to create, and to imagine. There will be plenty of time to teach children the ins and outs of money and finances when it’s more developmentally appropriate.

In the meantime, children learn a lot about money, finances, frugality, and the ethics of money simply by watching their parents spend money (but that, my friends, is an entirely separate post in and of itself).

Sure, children figure out pretty quickly that those coins and that paper and those rectangular plastic things somehow relate to goodies.  And sure, we adults can intellectualize with children and lecture them and even get them to parrot certain facts about money.  But a child, with a child’s mind and a child’s perspective and a child’s innocence, simply cannot comprehend and appreciate the world of money.  Even more so, why should they?

I felt no compunction about conveying to my young children (up to age 6) that money and the act of buying things was something that adults did.  In our family, children did not spend money nor make money nor even possess money.  This is not to say that the possession of money was strictly forbidden.  I’m sure my children each had a collection of coins they found around the house or in public places (shoot, those munchkins are so much closer to the ground than we are, they’re experts at finding dropped coins).  However, those coin collections were no more significant to them than the other items they collected:  sea shells, bits of colored ribbon, bottle caps, pretty stones, etc.  My kids knew that, theoretically, the coins carried a value that, say, bits of colored ribbon didn’t but that was in the adult world, not their own magical childhood worlds. 

Yes, some of the kids around them were receiving allowances or spending pocket change on candy selections but my children were no strangers to the fact that our family often did things differently than the way the neighbors and school mates’ families did things.  [I have since discussed some of these differences with my children and neither profess to have been permanently scarred by my somewhat un-orthodox parenting decisions; influenced, yes, but not scarred.  ]

Again, I’d like to emphasize, the use and possession of coins was not forbidden in our family; rather the use of money was an adult activity just as driving was an adult activity. 

I understand that not every parent feels comfortable drawing lines between parental privileges and children’s rights.  I’m not among them.  In our house, Dad drank Coke but the kids didn’t (no caffeine).  In our house, the kids wore what mom had laid out or required — that meant that The Daughter wore a coat or The Son wore boots and not sandals if mom said so.  In our family there was a difference between the dessert portions served to adults and children, and as much as it scandalized my sister, it was even acceptable for adults to declare to the children that a given night was not dessert night only to have the adults break out the ice cream after the children were in bed.  In our family The Husband and I sometimes said, “because I said so” and that was that. 

If you’re still reading this post and haven’t yet abandoned it is irrelevant, perhaps my ultimate goals would interest you.

1. I felt that exposing my children to the complexities of personal finance was unnecessary at a young age.  I had faith that even if we delayed lessons in personal finance they would still have plenty of time to learn everything they needed to know about money by the time they left home.
2. I wanted my children to grow up with a sense that money and all matters relating to money are serious and complex.  Handling money isn’t child’s play.
3. I wanted to delay their desire for the acquisition of goods as long as possible (see my cardinal rule for shopping with kids).
4. I didn’t want my children’s first experiences with “saving” money to be in any way associated with eventually spending (as in saving an allowance for a number of weeks in order to buy something even bigger and better).

Please understand, I’m not saying that children shouldn’t handle money until they’re 16 or 18 or, heaven forbid, 21.  I’m just saying that I decided to wait until my children were school-aged before beginning to create and encourage any relationship to or interest in money and finances. 

When our oldest was seven, we decided that it was time for her to learn to save money.  In a bank.  As I described last week, shortly after her 7th birthday, The Daughter and I visited a local bank and opened a custodial savings account.  Also at this time, we started giving her a weekly allowance.  So now she was receiving money and saving money.  The privilege of spending money, however, was still a full year away.  More on that next week.  Stay tuned…

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