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I’ve received a couple of letters from parents who want to introduce their children to money and how it works, but just can’t seem to find a way into the topic. One mom said it felt forced. Another was concerned about not starting too early. Some people question their own ability to deliver the message that they want their kids to get. Well, relax. There’s an easy way to do this. One that’s fun. One that builds skills you want your kids to have. It’s call reading.

There are lots of books you can use to introduce your children to money management. This approach most often works with kids between the ages of three and eight, when being read to is still a treat.

The trick is to pick material that’ll be interesting for your young listeners. It doesn’t have to have money in the title. Remember, your objective is to build a love of reading while opening the door to financial concepts such as decision making, goal setting and prioritizing. If these concepts sound more like life skills and don’t sound much like “money” to you, SURPRISE! It is these very life skills that make for future success in managing moolah. And putting them in a money context — as in some of the books I’ll mention here — makes the linkage between money and these skills easy to see.

If, for example, you’re introducing the idea of decision-making, you’ll want to show that there can be many different ways to use resources to achieve the end. “Decision making” means making a choice so you get the best possible result. Similarly, if you’re talking about goal setting, you’ll address the reality of there always being things we want to have or to do. “Goal setting” is choosing something to work for.

Here are some books to try:

• The Bernstain Bears and Mama’s New Job (2-5)
• The Bernstain Bears’ Trouble With Money  (2-5)
• Sheep In A Shop  (2-5)
• Something Good (2-5)
• Just Shopping With Mom (2-5)
• Ox-Cart Man (2-5)
• A Bargain For Francis (6-8)
• The Purse (6-8)
• A Chair For My Mother (6-8)
• My First Job (6-8)
• Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday (6-8)
• Tight Times (6-8)

The more positive your children’s reading experiences are, the more often they will want to do it! Of course, you can’t stop simply with the story. You need to add activities that further encourage and enhance the concepts you introduced through the book. For this, you’re limited only by your imagination.

You can create a chart for a special toy your child may want to save for. Each week, you can add the money saved to the envelope attached to the chart, and colour in another part of the picture to visually represent getting closer to the goal. Or you can build “family piggy banks” from paper maché and then have everyone pitch in to save for a special family outing.

Your activities should not only be fun to do with your kids, you should use them as opportunities to talk about the lessons presented in the books you’ve been reading together. Talk about the problems Alexander faces in trying to decide how to spend his $1.00 in Alexander, Who Used To Be Rich Last Sunday.  Relate it to your child’s challenges when he or she has a limited amount of money and wants to buy EVERYTHING.

As you share ideas with your kids, demonstrate that you value their views about how family money is used. Recognize your children’s ability to understand and use money at different ages by increasing their responsibility. While a four-year old can choose between two items in a store (setting priorities), a seven-year old can calculate how much change he’ll receive (calculation). And encourage your kids to have a wide variety of experiences with money: counting, saving, making spending plans, setting goals, making decisions about how to get the most for the least.

In families where money is discussed openly and kids have allowances, they are more likely to save and more likely to plan how to use their money. Create the circumstances where you can experience positive interactions with your kids about money and you’ll enhance their financial and life-long learning.

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 7:06 am and is filed under Kids & Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.