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every other area of your life you have a tendency to impact
your child with your core values and usually the same is true
when it comes to money. Now whether or not you realize you are
doing this is a whole different story! Let's dig a little deeper
into this idea and find some ways to help our children.
Often
parents introduction of money to children come from a negative
vantage point. Who hasn't heard their mom or dad say "do
you think money grows on trees" or "do you know
how hard I have to work to get money around here". This
is usually said after your child has asked for a new Xbox
360 or some £120 sneakers. For some parents this is
the extent of their financial training of their children.
While these expressions may be true they don't paint a positive
picture of the process of making money. For many children
all they see money as is a way to pay the bills and if that
is all money does that is not very exciting. Who wants to
work very hard, usually doing something they don't like, only
to come home and barely be able to make ends meet. Yet, sometimes
this may be the very message you are sending your children.
When teaching
kids about money the discussion should always begin with the
value of money, which should be more than just to pay bills.
Money should not only be seen as the end result of a hard
day's work but as a tool for building your life and your future.
In fact there should never be a correlation between how "hard"
you work and how much money you make because often the two
are not related. Some of the hardest working people get paid
very low wages. Have you ever been in a busy restaurant and
seen the waiter killing himself, working hard but not making
a lot of money. Now don't get me wrong hard work is necessary
but what's more important is the direction you put the work
in. Imagine if you challenged your child to pursue their passions
and that money would come as the result of perfecting their
passion. This would put a whole different spin on the situation.
Money would be seen as the end result of pursuing jobs and
careers that they are passionate about and as the payoff for
their pursuit of excellence.
What it
really boils down to parents is teaching kids about money
should be fun and exciting. Letting kids know they can actually
enjoy the process of making money is even more exciting. What
child when they think about things they love wouldn't get
excited if they knew they could get paid doing those things?
Hopefully parents you will add this to your core belief about
money and teach your kids that money should be the reward
for doing something you love. Imagine sending your child into
the marketplace with that mindset, there would never be any
limits to the things they could accomplish.
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