My five-year old son asked me for a toy he saw his older brother was looking at on a website. When I explained to him that it was newly launched and not available in the country yet, he answered with, “We can just order it on-line and have it shipped, Ma!”
At the mall when I told my barely-three-year old son that I didn’t have the money to buy a toy he wanted, he replied, “Just use your card, Mommy!” Never has it been more evident that my children are growing up in a world far from the one I knew as a child.
With the current situation of the world economy, none of us want our children to grow up to be misers or lavish spenders and money burners. But in this day and age where children are bombarded and exposed to all sorts of consumerism from television and the World Wide Web, it’s increasingly hard for parents to teach kids the value of saving money and spending wisely, the difference between a mere want from a real need.
I read “the greatest influence on a child’s spending behavior is what their parents do with and say about money in the real world”. Teach Your Kids to Spend Wisely While I have been firm and more-often-than-not successful with only buying toys for special occasions, my sons have seen firsthand that MOMMY orders some of her beauty products on-line and uses her credit cards to make purchases. No surprise there – monkey see, monkey do. I suppose I have only myself to blame for my children being familiar with on-line shopping and credit card spending.
The previous link has some really simple tips on how to teach kids the value of money. I don’t want to tell any parent just how to do that, but it’s important for us to keep in mind that no matter how young our children are, it is never too early to lay the foundations for the kind of relationship they'll eventually have with money through our own spending and saving habits. - KGG
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