Motivating your teen to want to learn about money isn’t as difficult as you think!
Here are a few things to remember:
- The reason money is important to YOU isn’t necessarily the same reason why money is important to THEM. Your cares and motivations are different. For example, here are some things teens don’t really care about:
- Balancing a checkbook—Teens live in a world where online banking takes care about this.
- Mortgages, rent, insurance—Unless it’s relevant NOW, it won’t stick.
- Fear and warning tactics don’t work with teens.
- They would rather go to the mall than sit and hear about how bad credit cards are (especially when they are used to spending freely, without consequences).
- They would rather hear about it from their peers than from you, unless the context is really worth their while.
- Asking them questions, hearing their thoughts, acknowledging where they are works a LOT better.
- If you aren’t an open book about money, then they won’t want to be, either.
- We live in a world where money is still a taboo subject. Parents can change this by sharing our history with money and our frustrations in a real way.
How do you motivate your teen? I’d love to hear about your ideas and experiences!
Easy Action: Begin a money journal with your teen. Teach your teen to figure out his or her current net worth. Then, set a goal for updating this document routinely (Weekly? Monthly? What works for you?) and create a reminder system.
Resource at Your Fingertips: Check out this article from TheMint.org about teens and tracking your net worth.
Remember to Pledge to teach your teen to be an excellent money manager! Vote “Yes. I will make the promise!” to let the world know that parents are doing their part to build a financially literate society!
© Your Teen’s Money Skills, Inc., 2012 All rights reserved worldwide.