Teach Kids Money SkillsFind ideas to teach kids money skills and help them learn business, entrepreneurship and other financial skills, with great resources for parents.
You need a strategy to teach kids money skills for life.
Consider the following questions:
What you might not know, is that more and more studies are showing that children are leaving school and even tertiary institutions with very little business savvy. Now, if their parents or teachers had realized that they need to teach kids money skills when they are young, they might not find themselves in this situation! Most of our generation has had to learn from the “school of hard knocks” or from necessity because we were never trained in the necessary financial skills. To get your kids on the fast-track to financial success, sign up for If you think that preschool is a bit young to begin, read on and I will share with you how our preschool children have started their financial education. But first let me share some family background. This has been a journey that started with us, the parents:
Our StoriesHighschool Drop-out vs University GraduateMy husband is a dyslexic high school drop-out – one who was told he’d never amount to much, by some well-educated folk who work in the local school that he attended.Well, after being 'hard done by' in the school system, at age 16, he had to get street-wise fast and learn to stand on his own two feet. Now, to his satisfaction, he is financially better off than those nay-saying teachers, some of whom are still working in the local school! Like a few other less-than-well-schooled people I know, he has proved that a good school education is not an essential requirement for success in business! In contrast, I did well academically at school and completed an honours degree at university, but afterwards I had very little business sense. I remember vividly, being dumb-stuck one day when my father-in-law asked me, “So Shirley, what ideas do you have for making money?” I had never learned ways for a kid to make money, and I had never even thought of anything but working for somebody else as an adult! My story shows that a good academic education is no guarantee of success either.
Financial EducationTeach Kids Money Skills
We want them to have opportunities to learn from experience, even from their mistakes if necessary, under our guidance and within the safety of our home environment. A few years ago we read Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and this book gave us a clear picture of how to succeed financially and how to teach kids money skills too. After that, we read about 15 other financial education books and started applying what we learned in our own lives as well as our children's. Since then our preschoolers have learned words like ‘debt’ and ‘investment' as well as ‘delayed gratification’, ‘profit' and ‘passive income’. After we sold a vehicle, my then four year old son said to me, “Mom, if the guy who bought the truck borrowed the money from the bank, then he actually works for the bank now!” I wonder if the buyer himself had that kind of insight! At 5 or 6 years of age our one daughter invested ten rand (about 3 bricks worth) into a spec house that my husband was building. She had to wait about a year for the house to sell before she received back her capital plus the pro-rata return on her investment. She then added a few more rand she had earned to the total and reinvested it in another small business venture. This young lady has not just learned ways for a kid to make money, but she has already learned to make her money grow! These two children have also invested in another family home jewellery business. We have had ‘board meetings’ to decide whether they can withdraw some of their earnings from the business and the four members of the board had to take a vote. Then they had to write a letter recording the transaction, which was signed by the four parties concerned. They have also tried some other once-off entrepreneurial ventures like repackaging and selling nuts that we bought wholesale, as well as performing services in return for payment. You will often hear them ask, “Mom, can I do… (fill in the blank) … for five rand?”
Business ParentingRecently, my husband and I decided to invest in a business parenting programme that gives us a more structured system to teach kids money skills. "None of us would place the development of characteristics such as honesty, generosity, respect, compassion, love, friendship and commitment behind the development of financial success. The course begins by giving you the tools to implement a pocket money system that requires budgeting and record keeping by each child to teach them the value of money. It also involves a ‘do-it-daily’ chore system that can be correlated to the pocket money system as you see fit. Many families believe that pocket money should not be money for nothing, but money earned. This is to teach children good work ethics. After this, the next step is to encourage children to earn additional money by contracting to do once-off tasks and then, later, to start ongoing entrepreneurial ventures that require business planning and record-keeping. I know that many parents will learn good business practice from this course along with their kids. The course is intended to make teaching kids about business as quick and easy for parents as possible. It is intended for children aged 6-14 but could easily be modified for younger or older children too. All the tools are provided in a very trendy kit and they have newsletters and forums to keep parents encouraged and motivated too. We started with the system mid-2006 and we are all loving it and learning from it. Our little ones especially feel very grown up, having their own money to manage. They are learning to keep records not just of their spending, but also tithing, saving, investing and contingency portions too. They are coping very well, under our supervision. Read more about
Ka-Ching!
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As the co-author, Gregory Bunyard says: "If you don't claim a copy of our Ka-Ching! Business Parenting Course, then who is going to make your child ready and able to meet life's future challenges? For international clients, here is a handy foreign exchange converter: www.xe.com
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