Raising Entrepreneurs

Welcome back!

I had one of those “why am I doing this?” moments the other day.

You know how it is, you’re talking to someone who just totally doesn’t comprehend why anyone would be interested in the thing you have devoted your life to doing.

And you stop and think “so why is this a good idea, again?”

It’s so easy to get caught up in what we’re doing that we forget the why.

So why teach kids about money?

I would have to say that one of the main motivators for me was working with a large number of frustrated, struggling, always broke adults. I remember thinking “they should be teaching this in schools, not leaving it to people to figure out on their own – or not – as adults”.

We teach kids healthy eating – why not healthy money habits, too?

But it’s not enough to say “why NOT teach them about money?”

There are lots of reasons why not – schools don’t do it, so it falls to parents, along with everything else that falls to parents these days. Between working two or more jobs themselves, and running the kids around to sport, church, scouts, extra-curricular school activities, music lessons, and playdates, not to mention squeezing in the housework somewhere in there, where are parents supposed to find time for yet another educational activity?

And that, right there, is actually the greatest reason why you MUST teach your kids about money.

Because if you don’t, they are going to end up just as stressed and frantic as you are, with just as little time for the truly important things in life.

If you had learned a bit about money in school, say you had studied and understood Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, you would have enough passive income by the time your kids went to school that you wouldn’t have to work so many hours between you.

You would probably have set up a source of income that enabled you to work from home, or close to home, at the times you choose to work.

Now, you might not have that in place yet – although I hope you’re working on it, because it’s better late than never, and if your kids don’t master money you may find yourselves doing Granny day-care for ten years or so because your kids and their co-parents are working, and childcare is unaffordable.

But even if you aren’t there yet, you can still teach your kids about the journey and the ultimate goal.

Give them the life choices that you never had – give them the knowledge they need.

Maybe they will act on it, and maybe they won’t, but at least, as a parent, you will have given them the ability to choose.