Teaching kids about money: The financial lessons parents should teach children at every age

By ITS Education Asia

Last week ChalkFace linked to an article where Warren Buffet recommended that parents start teaching their children about money from a young age. This article gives a very good outline and plan about how and when a parent should start teaching their children about money. The recommendations include:

• Age 3-4: Introduce the concept of money and exchanging it for goods
• Age 5-6: Teach the value of money and cost of goods
• Age 7-8: Teach them about wants versus needs, and smart shopping
• Age 9-10: Introduce saving, spending and delayed gratification
• Age 11-12: Teach them about being a smart consumer, deceptive advertising. and the fine art of budgeting
• Age 13-14: Give them their first taste of financial independence
• Age 15-16: Teach them how to build credit and the truth about credit cards
• Age 17-18: Use college as an example of real world financial decisions

It is important to develop good financial habits from a young age as a way of avoiding developing bad ones later on.