Tips for Helping Children Understand Money

Tips for Helping your Children Understand Money
By: Corrie Petersen

How many times have you told your child, "Money doesn't grow on trees"? I know I used to tell my boys that on a regular basis. Sometimes it felt like I was telling them this several times a day. Small children and sometimes the older ones as well, don't understand this, but it's something you need to show them or they'll have money problems for years to come.

We give our boys an allowance every week, but it doesn't come free. They must do chores around the house or they won't get it. Those chores include taking out the trash, rolling the garbage can to the street once a week, taking care of the dog, cleaning their rooms, and helping pick up other rooms in the house. It's not a lot, but we do expect them to help or they won't be paid.

It's no different then a regular job or a business. If you sit around and do nothing all day, you're not going to receive a paycheck for it and if you do it won't take long before it's noticed and it comes to an end. Well you need to treat the chores and allowance the same way.

If they don't do what's been assigned to them for the day or week, the allowance will either be docked for a certain amount or it won't be given at all. This may be hard to do, so you'll need to come up with a way to make it work. Pay a certain amount of money a day or per chore so it's easy to dock it from the pay when it's not done. Using a whiteboard may help with this or you can create a spreadsheet with the chores and boxes to mark when it's been done.

Another thing we struggled with was with them borrowing money. If one of the boys wanted something at the store, but didn't have the money we used to buy it for them and not require them to pay us back. It got to a point where he would purposely leave his money at home because he knew we'd just buy it for him. While this was a hard lesson it was one we decided was a must. We were spending way too much money doing this and it was defeating the purpose, so it came to an end.

Since we stopped making purchases and not making them pay it back they have learned how to save money or if they didn't think it was possible to save the money and make the purchase later, it taught them what a loan was. We put a list on the fridge that contained the amount they borrowed and each time a payment was made that was added and the amount subtracted. We came up with a reasonable pay off date and discussed it if the date was not going to be reached.

When you help your children to understand the value of a dollar and that you're not going to support them by purchasing things that aren't necessary, they'll learn about money and they'll make wise choices.

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Graduation 2012

When school began it felt like it would be forever before we finished.  Honestly, it seems like a blink to me. Our lessons are almost complete and plans for next year are in the works.  

Last Friday we had our annual evaluations, which officially brought our 4th child to the end of his homeschool journey.  What a journey it has been. He was faithful and finished his course. 

While I am overjoyed at his success, it is a bittersweet moment for us. It reminds me how fleeting our lives are, and especially the brevity of the time we have with our children. Almost overnight they transform from babies, to toddlers, to teens, and suddenly, childhood days are done, wings are flight-worthy, and they soar off embarking on a new life's journey.  

In less than two days our son will be leaving his childhood behind and enter adulthood. 
 We love him so dearly. He is such a blessing to us. 

Son, you will be missed more than we can say.  I love you, Son.