Following the series of economy posts for children, today we will introduce the concept of pay, salary and savings in our children. Once we have explained to our children what money is and how it works, we have to convey simultaneously that they as such cannot get money for their work because they cannot work.
Unlike their parents, work is a prohibited exchange for children, since they have to educate themselves first in school, learn and help or help with domestic collaboration. However, part of economic education needs our children to start managing their own money and that they begin to delimit their income and expenses, within their own economy. The most common concept for all this is to give our children a small pay and explain that said pay has to have two components in all cases.
The fate of pay, long term and short term for the child economy
There is no child who does not wish to have a special gift, a whim or an expense that we consider to be an extra for the usual economic flow of a child. If our child is already at a certain age of economic independence and we have assigned him a payment, we must simultaneously introduce the concept of saving.
In order for a child to understand what saving is, we have to determine the time in which we are going to purchase a product or service. For example, if our son rubbing adolescence wants to go to the concert of his musical idols, we have to establish a balance between the pay and the amount of money he has to save so that they themselves contribute their savings to said future spending.
He savings as such always have to have a justification. This justification in adults has its origin in having a coverage for unforeseen expenses, in having an economic safety mattress for changes in our working life or simply, in saving to spend in the future (change of vehicle, vacations, a house ... ) For children, saving must also have a reason and the way to teach a child to save part of the basis of establishing clear medium- or long-term objectives for them to spend that saving.
The value of money and its daily activities, beware of the excessive commodification of relationships
Within the criteria to set a pay, teach economics, savings, the value of money and the consideration that children receive for activities they do, parents themselves have to handle all these elements with exquisite care.
It is not good to isolate children from the economy but we must also have very careful to fully commercialize everything children do and put them a monetary value.
For example, children have to learn that there are obligations that do not have compulsory consideration (study for example) and that the setting of a payment has the rules that parents want to put, without being subject to good behavior, to performing tasks domestic or collaborating picking up the kitchen or your room.
The obligation to do things, the responsibility with their own actions and the consideration they receive at all times, is not binding and teach economics, assign a pay, teach them savings, can not leave aside education in obligations and pure values without counterpart .
The photo of the domestic economy, let's explain to the children how the home economy works
In line with the previous responsibility teaching, I am one of those who support that Children should not be isolated from family economic reality, we are already in an acceptable situation, very buoyant or even if our family is going through a severe crisis.
Children should always be protected against family problems, but we cannot ignore that they themselves, depending on their age, should know what happens when parents are unemployed, how money is spent entering the home and how to save on home.
These concepts reinforce in our children the concepts of necessary and essential elements for our daily life, as well as those expenses or elements that are expendable. Landing them little by little in their life the family situation, is a fundamental step for children to learn to discriminate what is a superfluous expense, what is an essential expense and how important it is that the home always has a certain level of savings to cover unforeseen situations.
In Babies and More | How to teach economics to our children and make them value what they have
Image | free pictures of money
