If you give your children an allowance, they will
become more self-reliant and responsible …and
develop some simple, powerful money habits.

The topic of “Allowances” mostly causes some debate with parents and their children. (Probably not as much the “Bailout” one in Congress and ‘Main Street’, thank goodness)

Anyway, allowances can either a good thing or a bad thing. It all depends on how you, the parent, use it…and what experiences your child has with their allowances.

Here’s what I invite you to do:

• Give your kids an allowance where they are learning to save, invest, donate and spend wisely the amount they have been given.
• Let them make mistakes with a small amount…it is far better than making a huge mistake later in life which could have serious consequences.

The final vital step is in this sequence of posts relates to Financial Intelligence.

When you reveal to and grow in your child the missing
intelligence that is NOT taught at school -
Financial Intelligence -
then they won’t struggle as much throughout their life.

Let me ask you this question…

Did you study a subject at school called “Wealth 101″?

I certainly didn’t. In many of our schools today, such an important life skill is still not available to our kids. Now, some schools will say that there is an ‘economics’ subject. This is true.

Do all kids study it? I don’t think so, do you?

It is up to us as parents to show them how.

Here’s what I invite you to do:

Involve your children in how to save, to pay themselves first, to invest (short and long term; why not  introduce them to the magic of compounding), to donate and to spend wisely.

In a later post I will expand on both of these valuable and life-changing steps.

Let’s Talk

OK, this is where I invite you to comment, to add what you think about the points raised in this post.

I’d love to hear what you do to deal with these vital topics?

What’s worked for you? Do you use any particular techniques? What’s the hardest part about raising a child to be happy and successful? What are you most concerned about?