Don’t hold on to your “New Year’s money”! The child’s financial intelligence cannot be suppressed

Knowing how to manage money is an indispensable ability for everyone. Knowing how to make money, how to spend money, and how to manage money are skills that have a great relationship with the success of children in the future. Just after the Spring Festival, every child has a large amount of lucky money, but many children\’s lucky money is handed over to their parents with the excuse that \”Mom will keep it for you.\” In fact, in the face of this \”huge sum\” of money received by children, parents should not only keep it for their children, but also teach them how to allocate and manage this money. To cultivate their children\’s financial intelligence, they should learn from every new year\’s money received by their children. Start! What is financial intelligence? Why develop children’s financial intelligence? Financial intelligence refers to the ability of individuals and collectives to understand, create and manage wealth, including concepts, knowledge and behavior. It includes two aspects of ability: first, the ability to create wealth and understand the law of wealth multiplication (i.e., values); second, the ability to control wealth and apply wealth. In Lanlan\’s mother\’s view, \”spending money\” and \”being a miser\” are both undesirable. In addition to letting children learn how to save money, it is more important to let them learn how to make money and how to manage money. It is crucial to cultivate children\’s financial intelligence from an early age and improve their ability to create and control wealth. In China, children generally do not have pocket money and often ask their parents for whatever they need to buy. As a result, many children do not understand the concept of money and either value money too much or spend money lavishly. These are all manifestations of children who do not have financial intelligence, or parents who do not pay attention to cultivating their children\’s financial intelligence. Money is often linked to many things in life, such as work, interests, hobbies, etc. Children without financial intelligence do not know how to plan themselves, let alone invest in themselves. The first point of cultivating children\’s financial intelligence is to give them money that they can control independently. Jews are the most focused on cultivating children\’s financial management concepts in the world. Their parents will give their children a stock when they are one year old, and wait until they are 6 or 7 years old. I started learning to operate stocks when I was 10 years old. American families also attach great importance to cultivating their children\’s financial intelligence. Although they do not have the tradition of receiving large amounts of New Year\’s money at once, they do receive a regular amount of pocket money every day. Lucy\’s eldest son, Matt, Lanlan\’s mother\’s neighbor, already had pocket money that he could use freely when he was in preschool. But he never spent money randomly, but saved his money to buy things he really wanted to buy. The most surprising thing is that on the day of her mother Lucy\’s birthday, the child used the money he saved to buy her a certificate. Combining his own creativity, he awarded his mother a \”Best Mom\” ​​award! Every time Lucy and I talk about this, we are very proud and proud! I talked to Lucy about how she cultivates her children\’s management and control of money. Lucy said that she has been teaching her son to recognize and calculate money since he was three years old, so it is not surprising that the 7-year-old can give his mother such a surprise. In the United States, children begin to learn to recognize banknotes and coins of various denominations in kindergarten. Teachers will also let children brainstorm in class on how to \”make money make money\” through various legitimate channels. In American schools, if children engage in private monetary transactions for small commodities, as long as both parties feel it is fair, not only will they not be banned, but teachers will encourage it. But in China,The situation is very different. I remember one time when I was in China, Lan Lan’s mother took my eldest son to play pottery in the pottery room. A little girl walked in with a bunch of candied haws in her mouth. The pottery teacher probably knew the little girl very well, so she asked, \”Who can give it to you?\” Did you buy the candied haws? Where did you get the money? Be careful, I\’ll call your mother and tell her.\” The little girl hesitated at first, and when she heard that she had to \”tell mommy,\” she was so anxious that she almost cried. The teacher immediately comforted the little girl and said, \”Teacher is joking. I won\’t tell your mother. It\’s a little secret.\” The pottery teacher later chatted with me and said that this little girl\’s pocket money was very strictly controlled by her parents. Although she received a lot of New Year\’s money, she probably handed it over to her parents. This situation is very common, but parents of children do not realize that allowing children to freely control money is the basis for cultivating children\’s financial intelligence. The lack of pocket money means that children cannot participate in actual consumption management activities and tend to value money too much. This will have a negative impact on improving children\’s ability to understand money and handle wealth independently, but it is also the most common way for Chinese families to manage their children\’s New Year\’s money or pocket money. The second point of cultivating children\’s financial intelligence is to let them understand where the money goes. Parents often tell their children, \”Let your parents keep the New Year\’s money for you, and we will buy whatever you want to buy for you.\” However, they do not tell their children specifically how to keep it. , and did not explain in detail to the children where the New Year\’s money went, which gave the children a feeling that \”the New Year\’s money was confiscated by their parents.\” Some parents who are financially aware will choose to use their children\’s New Year\’s money to buy insurance or buy bonds with larger returns, but they are too lazy to explain to their children. In fact, when parents make decisions about money allocation, they should explain the reasons, pros and cons of the move to their children. For example, buying insurance can provide a guarantee for your own safety and is also the simplest investment; buying bonds is also a more profitable investment method than deposits; and depositing in a bank may not be able to withstand the risk of inflation, but Every family needs some money for emergency needs. If children ask what inflation is, they can give a simple example to explain: candy that could be bought for 5 cents in the past will cost 1 yuan a year later. Use some simple words to explain to children the whereabouts and uses of money, so that children know how to \”spend money\”, not just let children know how to save money. In the United States, many families teach their children to keep accounts when they are very young and insist that they keep accounts every day. Through simple accounting, children will clearly know where their money is spent and where it is stored, which will be of great help to them in learning to manage money in their lives in the future. The third and most critical point in cultivating children’s financial intelligence is to let children understand that any wealth is not something they should take for granted, but must be exchanged for labor. (Let children understand the value of money itself) Many children take it for granted that their elders give a generous amount of lucky money, but they are not grateful. They will even secretly compare the amounts of different red envelopes and evaluate different elders. In fact, financial intelligence and moral character are closely related. Teaching children to manage money is just a tool and means. The most important thing is to let themKnow the work and effort behind the money. In the United States, many families assign certain chores to their children every day, and each chore is paid accordingly. For example, it costs 5 cents to wash dishes, 10 cents to do laundry, 50 cents to help mow the lawn at home on weekends, etc. Of course, the amount of remuneration for labor is also the result of mutual negotiation between parents and children, and parents must also ensure fairness, justice, and openness. Children can buy what they want through their own labor income. In this way, children will become more and more actively involved in the work at home, and will not be lavish in buying whatever they see, because they know that money contains sweat and must be earned through labor. Letting children make money through labor is a very typical way to cultivate children\’s financial intelligence. The daughters of former U.S. President Obama also had to do housework on their own to get pocket money; the beautiful daughter of new President Trump, Ivanka, also worked as a model to earn pocket money at a young age; the son of football star Beckham They also need to work at McDonald\’s to earn pocket money. These families allow their children to abandon the sense of dependence on \”getting something for nothing\” from an early age and establish the concept of obtaining wealth with their own hands. This way, children can better understand the value of wealth and the fundamental way to create wealth. \”Talmud\” says: \”If all the suffering in the world is concentrated on one end of the scale, and poverty is placed on the other end, then poverty will be heavier than all the suffering.\” Therefore, cultivate your children\’s temperament as early as possible Financial intelligence is very important. In fact, the focus of financial management is not how much money you can make, but how much money you can keep and let the money work for you. Finally, a set of financial education timetable for Jewish families is attached for parents’ reference! At the age of three, children need to be able to identify money. At the age of four, children need to learn simple monetary calculations. By the age of five, children need to know the value of items and how money comes from. At the age of seven, children learn to change money and count large amounts of coins. At the age of eight, children must be able to work and earn money and know how to deposit money into an account. By the age of nine, children should be able to plan their spending for the week and know how to compare prices when shopping. At the age of ten, children should know how to save some money every week for emergencies. By the age of twelve, children need to be able to make a two-week spending plan and know the correct use of banking terminology. Compared with children in other countries, Chinese children receive a large amount of lucky money every year and are better equipped to learn financial management. However, if they do not make good use of it, they will lose this great opportunity to learn financial management. Therefore, you can’t afford to spend “New Year’s money”. Starting from this year’s New Year’s money, parents should cultivate their children’s financial intelligence!