Don’t Nickel and Dime Your Child - Teach Him Instead

My stepdaughter earns $120 for babysitting over a week of agonizing work dealing with an obnoxious 7 year old. The kid is the granddaughter of the neighbor, and a good con artist, to boot. The kid nearly sets the couch on fire, breaks the blinds, lies, makes excuses, and seems to have a good, yet untreated case of ADHD going on. It would have taken a miracle for most babysitters not to kill this child during the course of a week’s time.

So after working so hard to earn her money, your kid goes out and blows it on food for her group of friends at the mall. She also buys a backpack, and other menial crap. The money she worked all week for was gone in a matter of a day. It’s her money and she should be able to do what she wants to with it, right? Or should she have been taught how to manage it better? Is it too late to teach her anything? She’s 16.

Teenagers today in general can’t seem to hold on to a dollar to save their lives. Impulsiveness and irresponsibility come from the challenges they face in the face of authority. They feel they have little control over their lives, and if they want to spend their money, then they will - on whatever they want to spend it on.

Where does the irresponsibility come from?

It’s been debated that kids taught about money from an early age might actually have a better understanding and respect for it. Some kids save it in their piggy banks, while others have bank accounts set up for them by their parents so they can learn to deposit it as well as withdraw it when they want to buy something.

Maybe the banking plan comes from the double step theory. Instead of having cash available at your immediate disposal to spend, it’s better if more work has to be done to get your hands on it.  If you have to actually go out or get a ride to the bank to use your card in the ATM or worse, go inside, maybe it might deter kids from careless spending. Somewhat analogous to keeping a gun in the car as long as it takes two steps to get it ready to shoot. The gun has to be unloaded – maybe the piggy bank should be too – right into the bank.

What’s my problem?

I’m planning on teaching my son about money early. I want him to understand what it is, how it works, and see that when it’s gone, it’s gone. I don’t want him to fall into the same traps I’ve fallen into in my life. I just want him to know that it’s ok to save it. The last thing I want is for him to have his life revolve around it and not care about anything else. I’m not going to do to him what my mother did to me.

I don’t really know if it’s as much of a problem as it is a self worth issue. Maybe it’s a problem of self worth. I was taught that unless you go to college and get an education with a real job to make real money, you were nothing. It’s still brought up and thrown into my face at least weekly to this day.

How does it relate to my life?

It’s an ongoing internal struggle. I have no problem saving money, when I have extra to save. I just don’t feel as a productive member of society if I’m not out there earning a bunch of money and making a name for myself by doing so.

This is what my mom led me to believe. Am I less of a person because I’m raising my son at home and not out there making over $100,000 a year? I know money is important, and it’s a necessary evil, but it isn’t everything in life.

I feel like what I do is worth far more than any amount of money, but my mother wouldn’t know that because she never had to do it. My grandmother raised me while my mother worked. It was easier.

I guess if it were that important to my mother, she would have made sure I learned the proper lessons relating to money. She should have made sure I went off to college as I should have at 18 years old, and started my life the way she thinks I was supposed to.

The problem was, I was too stubborn and sabotaged my education, and my future. I did this because she went about it the wrong ways. She would scream at me and call me an idiot if I didn’t understand something. So, I stopped asking. I guess she thought I was an adult, or smarter than I was as a teenager.

I don’t want this happening to my kids. Inevitably, they will grow up, find their own way, and probably make a lot of mistakes instead of doing things right. They will be like me and learn the hard way. I just wish they would listen. I can honestly say I have a good grip on reality from my vast array of life experiences thus far.

I want my kids to know what it is to write a check, learn about credit cards and the easy dangers of them. I don’t believe in hiding credit card issues, or banking from children to “protect” them and “let them be a kid.”  There’s no reason my kid can’t go out and play in a tree house 5 minutes after we have a talk about obtaining and having credit cards and what they are, what they do, and what they can do to you if you are not careful with them.

I will teach my son how to write a check, deposit money, withdraw money, and be careful, not paranoid, about protecting his identity.

These were things that were never taught to me. I never had the understanding of anything related to money. I just liked having it and blowing it, like my stepdaughter. I think maybe it’s time for her to have a crash course lesson in the value of money. Then again, maybe she just needs to learn the hard way.

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