Teaching Your Kids Financial Responsibility At An Early Age
Sunny Istar Lee
7Habits of Highly Motivated Kids
Article by Sunny Istar Lee // Founder & CEO of Good Life Advisors
Can you imagine your children or your grandchildren don’t ask for money, ask you to buy them things or take them to different places because they have their own money they work really hard for? And can you see them financially independent from a young age?
It’s too good to be true? That’s exactly what I envisioned when I was pregnant with my twin boys Jason and Matthew 15 years ago and surprisingly my imagination became a reality because I believed in those dreams and pursued them incessantly.
I grew up in an underprivileged family in a small town in South Korea, and none of my parents taught me anything much about money management, so I went through lots of financial difficulties as a young adult. So, I began their money education when my kids were two years old. Now they are 15. They are not only straight-A honor class students, but also highly motivated, financially responsible, money-savvy, vision-driven and happy teenagers who love life. In a few years, they both want to go to a medical school to become doctors, and of course, they will be paying for their own college. They know what to do because they were taught these important financial life skills from an early age.
In my book “Is Your Child a Money Master or a Money Monster?” I talked about the Seven Habits of highly motivated kids for financial success that I personally developed and used with my sons for more than a decade. They are as follows:
Habit #1: Develop a Money Master Mindset
Habit #2: Start Saving Early!
Habit #3: Create Reminders, Routines, and Rewards
Habit #4: Set High Goals through Expectations
Habit #5: Learn Money Matters By Playing
Habit #6: Go Experience the Real World
Habit #7: Give Back and Share the Love
When I say I have taught my kids about money management and financial responsibility from age two, many parents ask me “Isn’t it too early to give two-year-olds a work to do and teach them about money?”
Not really. It’s because, by the age of two, kids’ brain size is almost about 80% of the adult brain which has nearly100 billion neurons. That means that these young children have about 80 billion neurons that function to process and transmit information. Therefore, they are capable of understanding everything with their super brains. That’s why I believe that it’s important to teach young children important life skills including financial life skills such as earning, saving, investing and managing money and becoming financially responsible.
Statistics show that more and more college graduates move back with their parents because they don’t know how to face the real-life problems out there like getting a job, earning money, or surviving in this fast, competitive, and globalized world. Unfortunately, many of them were never taught these essential life skills before, and now they want to stay with their parents because they feel safe there. They refuse to work, slouch around, eat everything but do nothing. For how long? Some of them may stay as babies in their adult bodies for the rest of their lives.
That’s one of the reasons why I’ve been on a mission to raise awareness of teaching kids money management and financial responsibilities as early as possible. We need to help our little children to understand adulthood responsibilities when they are still young so they can make a smooth transition from childhood to adulthood.
Therefore, the best time to teach children about money is now. The earlier the better. And the best way to teach them about this topic is just like teaching them to ride a bike or to swim. We teach them step-by-step. We teach them basic finance, financial responsibility, and self-reliance when they are still in kindergarten or elementary school, not after 18 when the stakes are high and the rewards are much harder to gain.
I am an eagle mom. I want my eaglets to fly high in their lives, so I kick their butts out of their nest, their comfort zone so they can fly. I do it because I love them. I want them to thrive in their lives, not barely survive. I believe that a mom teaches her kids to live, but an eagle mom teaches her kids to soar.
These days, many parents have a lot of fears and worries about their children and about what can go wrong with them in the future. F.E.A.R can stand for “False Evidence Appearing Real” or “Face Everything and Rise.” Choose to face the fear and rise and teach what they need to know including money management and financial responsibility to live an abundant, purposeful, fulfilling and successful life.
Once children establish money master mindsets and healthy financial habits and good money management skills, on top of that foundation, they can build anything like success, influence, wealth, abundance, prosperity, impact, legacy, happiness and so forth in an everlasting way.
I believe that parents are the most important and influential teachers and role models in their children’s lives. So my invitation to all parents is:
“Teach if you know. If you don’t, learn and teach. Teaching is a form of love in practice.”