Yahoo Finance How to spot your kids’ money personality
Teaching your children about money can be incredibly daunting – you might even feel like you’re failing yourself.
Understanding how money works is one of life's most important lessons. Your kids will be taught some financial literacy at school, but ultimately the bulk of their money know-how and financial success falls down to you as their parent.
Recognising your child’s money personality is the key to setting them up for success. It means you can teach them in a way which they will relate and respond to.
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What’s your child’s money personality?
When you become a parent, you quickly learn that we are hard-wired for a certain level of consumption and that wiring predisposes us to particular financial behaviour and money decisions.
How can you spot this in your young kids? You can see it in action at the fridge, at a birthday party, Easter… anywhere there is indulgence and excess on offer. That’s because food is a great proxy for money in small children and you can see straight away kids’ natural propensity to delay or indulge.
Your child will likely fall into one of these five categories.
Personality 1: The consume and cryer
From the moment she was born, my daughter was a “consumer and cryer” (albeit an adorable one). She’d eat her entire Easter haul at once then be upset that it’s finished… with an upset tummy to boot. Now, aged 10, my challenge is getting her off shopping websites. It was clear from a young age that instant gratification is her intrinsic bias.
Personality 2: The save and sufferer
People with this money type are the opposite. Instead of consuming everything in sight they don’t give into temptation… ever. Take my son for example. He has always held things back to an almost masochistic extent, he is so self-disciplined. I suspect it was initially also to torment his sister in her moments of everything-is-gone despair.
But as parents, encouraging delaying gratification bodes well for a child’s future financial security and ability to target and hit savings goals so ‘sweet’ they can almost taste them. As a now-13-year-old, my son’s room is packed full of big-ticket Lego structures, some of which he saved 12 months for.
Just ensure that these children learn to reward themselves along the way too. Remember the old adage: enjoy the journey, not just the destination!
Personality 3: The savvy seller
Some children have a natural ability to earn a quick buck. And again, my daughter ably demonstrates this - she recently started charging our adult visitors for a homemade coffee, croissant, or even a roast dinner. Her in-built understanding of ‘value-adding’ and how to mark up prices is a characteristic of the emerging entrepreneur. It also helps to fund her shopping habit.
Personality 4: The ‘no’ and negotiator
This personality type is related to the one above. Do you have a little one who pushes back on boundaries, trying to change your arrangement on everything from chores to bedtime? Console yourself with the fact that the ability to bargain is brilliant in business.
Incidentally, my parents delight in telling people that the first word I spoke as a baby was “no”. Embrace this skill and focus on showing your little people how to negotiate respectfully and successfully.
Personality 5: The worrier
This is the one to watch out for: kids who have a tendency to take things on and feel too deeply, especially now they’re aware times are tight for your family.
Try not to convey too much concern to these kids – I know it’s difficult when you’re concerned yourself. Instead, help your worrier feel empowered to make a difference and help your family ‘team’ cut its costs a little and relieve some financial pressure. Even small changes make a difference… to your babies and your budget.
Psychologists also suggest the same approach for dealing with extremely prevalent eco-anxiety – or ecological anxiety – and economic anxiety.
Where do your kids fall?
Your kids could be like mine and be a combination of the above, or do they have other intriguing tendencies? The thing is that a little of each characteristic will probably mean they go a long way… if you as their parent consider how their personality type can affect their relationship with money and their future.
Work out what habits should be encouraged (or discouraged) and set your mini me’s up for success.
Nicole Pedersen-McKinnon is the author of How to Get Mortgage-Free Like Me, available at www.nicolessmartmoney.com. Follow Nicole on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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