Parenting Guide

Two ways to help your kids understand money

As savvy as kids are in this Information Age, they remain dangerously uninformed about money. Yet knowing how to manage money is a skill that will help determine the quality of your child's adult life. Just as kids learn to read and write, young people must become financially "literate." Few schools teach money management. As a parent, the all-important task lies with you.

As parents, we must move in two directions.

1. Every day, we need to create conversations about money – not lectures, but casual commentaries on situations that arise naturally in our days. The aim? To teach children a) how to think about money and b) make responsible decisions in using it.
2. We must review our own financial habits so that we are modeling responsible financial behavior. Children quietly observe adults, and parents are "modeling" financial behavior all the time – whether or not we mean to.

You will find three sets of pages under the Tips for Parents tab to help you down the path of financial literacy: guides to help you work with your children; teaching tools to aid you in your effort; and pages that help you evaluate your own financial habits, so necessary to good modeling.