Why allowing our children to make a few mistakes can be one of the best ways to teach kids to be financially savvy.
As parents, we want our children to grow into self -sufficient adults, but ensuring that requires more than tender loving care. We need to teach our children about the basics in life, and that includes how to save and spend money. Paul Lermitte, author of Making Allowances says sometimes that means letting them live with their mistakes. “One of the biggest mistakes parents make when we teach our kids money management, and I include myself in this, is not allowing them to make their decisions. We want to control our kids in a nice way and we don’t want them to make mistakes.”
These sorts of things are all part of an important learning process, however Paul adds that often parents say they “don’t want to see my child who has a toy that he just bought break. We take it back to the store and he still wants to buy it even though it’s going to break again. He buys it for the second time and what happens? It breaks again. But” adds Paul, ” that was a great mistake, a great thing. Kids learn by those things.”
The Parent Report’s guest expert is Paul Lermitte, a family financial planner and author of Making Allowances.
From the nationally syndicated radio show “The Parent Report”, hosted by Joanne Wilson and heard on more than 100 radio stations. Any advice or information contained herein should never be a substitute for professional and/or medical advice, diagnosis and treatment. For more information please review Terms of Service