Teaching Teens Financial Responsibility
When your kids were little, you frequently heard requests such as “Will you read me a story?” or “Can we go for a bike ride?” Now that your offspring have morphed into teenagers, their pleadings often involve asking for money—your money.
Teenagers are known to push our boundaries in various areas as they learn to maneuver the landscape of the world around them. Where in other areas we are able to give our teens some space to make decisions based on their own views such as clothing, friends, and activities or hobbies. We may find it difficult to see their perspective on financial matters as a realistic view – especially when the money is coming out of our own wallets. How can you tame their cash demands and avoid the money wrangles, while also instilling a sense of financial responsibility? Here are a few ideas:
• Make the most of “teachable moments”—Look for opportunities in your day-to-day interactions with your teen when you can slip in a money “lesson.” For instance, if you’re out shopping together, you can talk about your own shopping choices or why you’re delaying a purchase.
• Provide hands-on experience—These types of experiences have more impact for teens than just listening to you talk. For instance, have your teenager make the grocery list for the week. At the market, he’ll see for himself how big a chunk of the family budget goes toward groceries.
• Model money monitoring—Sit down with your teen to go over her list of expenditures for the week. Discuss the following: Were these wants (things that just made you feel good) or needs (things like a new jacket to replace the one that no longer fits)? How could you have spent your money differently?
• Introduce plastic, perhaps—You’ll need to decide if your teen is mature enough to manage a debit card. You could give your teen a Garden Savings FCU student debit account with a spending limit. Again, go over transactions together.
• Talk about the future—What will come after high school? If it’s college, what portion of expenses will the teen have to cover? Older teens also begin to think about career choices. This is a good time to talk with them about saving for retirement. It’s never too early to have that conversation.
Having these conversations with your teens is important at this stage and will help build a foundation on how they perceive money in the future. When they see you take the time to acknowledge their wants and needs while seeing your decision making process will intrigue them into mirroring a similar model for themselves. The truth is – we may at times think “Do as I say, not as I do” but when your kids see you making healthy financial decisions that is exactly when they will see the responsibility of finances. Try to bring your kids in on the process of how you create your budget, balance your check book or even how you review your statements. It may take time for them to be interested enough to finish the process with you but opening the door means they will remember they can go to you with questions about any of those processes in the future.
Garden Savings provides teen and child financial education seminars and continually looks in our communities for additional opportunities. Let Garden Savings Federal Credit Union help. We can set-up your teenager with our teen checking account and their first debit card. Getting teens established with these tools can help them learn to manage money now – so they don’t get into financial trouble later. We offer services that help build credit once they turn eighteen while helping them systematically save for that first car or college. Garden Savings has helped many members through various life-stages resulting in a stronger financial foundation for them and their families. Remember, Garden Savings Federal Credit union is not-for-profit – we are in business to serve you.
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