The traditional paradigm of, “study hard and get good grades and you will find a high paying job with great benefit” is no longer enough. Your children need to understand money and how it works. The main reason people struggle financially is because they have spent years in school but learned nothing about money. This explains how smart bankers, doctors and accountants who earned excellent grades in school may still struggle financially all of their lives. Money is not taught in school. Schools focus on scholastic and professional skills, but not on financial skills. Therefore it is your role as parents to teach your children about money for their future financial success. Please I say again parents do not rely on the school system to teach your children about money, do not have the saying: “You can only learn so much by reading.” No, for example you can not learn to ride a bicycle by reading a book. The world has changed but the education has not changed. Omar Idn Ai-Halif said that there are four things come not back; the spoken word, the spent arrow, the past, and the neglected opportunity. So choose to share this knowledge with your children, and you choose to prepare them for the awaiting world (future). No one will. You and your children’s future will be determined by choices you make today, not tomorrow. Today we are facing global and technological changes as great or even greater than ever faced before. No one has a crystal ball, but one thing is for certain; changes lie ahead that are beyond our reality. Who knows what the future brings. But whatever happens, we have fundamental choices. Play it safe or play it smart by preparing, getting educated and awakening your own and your children’s financial genius. Financial Intelligence is mental process via which we solve your financial problems. One of the reasons the rich get richer, the poor get poorer is because the subject of money is taught at home, not in school, children learn about money from parents. So what can a poor parent tell their children about money? Simply say: “stay in school and study hard.” The children may graduate with excellent grades but with poor person’s financial programming learnt in childhood from the parents. Martin Luther king Jr said: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” He went on to say that children should be taught from childhood controlling their own destiny then giving up that control to someone else. Money is one form of power, but what is more powerful is financial education. Money comes and goes, but if you have the education about how money works, you gain power over it. Education is foundation of success, just like scholastic skills are vitally important, so are financial and communication skills. Mental exercise increase your chances for wealth, laziness reduces both health and wealth. So how does parents teach their children what the school does not? How do you teach accounting to your children? And how do you teach investing, when as parents you yourself are risk averse? Teach at home around the dinner table, involve your children in home budgeting, planning, and shopping children can understand the difference between need and want and limitations on money supply. Children saving accounts are also considered to be a good learning method for children to understand financial intelligence especially with the multiplication table. It is believed this can help in saving 10 per cent of birthday, holiday and allowance money. With the use of mathematics formulas, teach them to save or set aside a small amount for future wants and needs. Help them to learn to save money for gifts and contributions as they also learn mathematics. Introduction of brain games like chess in at home can also widens children’s brain or even involving them in your business. There is need to try and provide a small allowance for each child, and teach children to plan how to spend it. Do not “tie” the allowance to chores, but make it a regular amount of money to be managed in order to cover agreed upon school and personal expenses. Try to provide opportunities as your children get old enough to earn additional money. Teach them that money must be earned by someone’s time and effort. Help them begin to understand about standards of work - that sloppy work will not be rewarded as much as careful, conscientious work. For teenagers, you must establish family rules for working outside the home, with a requirement to save a portion of the money, and guidelines for limiting recreational expenses. (It is very difficult for most young people to make the transition from large expenditures on car, food, clothes, music and other entertainment items to the “real world” of rent, transportation, insurance and taxes). Try to provide each family member the responsibility of sharing the chores without pay, simply as a reasonable expectation of each member of the household. Children need to understand that home life (both now and as adults) has both privileges and responsibilities which do not involve money directly. If a child fails to carryout agreed upon tasks or responsibilities, take away a privilege for a specific, fair amount of time, such as watching TV, visiting a friend, or participating is some recreational activity. A recent review of the research literature by Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory found that, “clearly, parent involvement in teaching their children issues to do with money is effective in fostering achievement and affective gains at all levels of their lives.” Parents need to be involved throughout their children’s life’s to teach them read and understand numbers. Contact: byawaka@yahoo.com
