Your Attitude to Money: Influence from the Past

This post is to help you figure out why you think about money the way you do and why how you earn, spend and save is by thinking about your upbringing, and its influence in your life now.

To help recall what your family’s financial situation and what it was like growing up, here are a few questions for you:

Was your family well off or struggling financially?

How did your family make you feel?

Did you grow up with your parents? Or did you grow up in a one-parent household?

Does both of your family works? Was your family partially or fully reliant with government benefits?

What did your family choose to spend their money on? And what was considered a “luxury” in your home?

What was the view of your parent and your view on education? Eating out? “Owning a home”.

How possessions were treated in your house? Was it valued? Or “Disposable”.

Was there any open discussion about money in your house?.

Homelife can highly influence your sense of financial independence and responsibility for money. The question below will help relate to our attitude towards money.

Did your parents give money for you to spend? How old were you when u started?

Do you have to work around the house to get that money?

When did you start earning your own money?

Teaching Children About Money

Some parents do not teach their children about money because they think that their child is too young to learn about money or they should not be talking about money with children. It is a life-long benefit for teaching children good habits on money and it’s worth the effort. However, children with no financial education will face the consequences for a lifetime. For parents to talk to their children about the feelings of their past experiences, the values and beliefs, it is vital for healthy family development and establishing a consistent approach to teach their young about money.

These are some questions prepared for the readers that could help parents to interact with their children regarding money:

How will we create an open environment in which our family can discuss money issues?

What should we discuss about with the children regarding money?

What is our family beliefs and behaviour towards money that the children could learn from?

How are we going to deal with the way the children handle their money?

How do we respond to the children’s buying requests?

Financial guidelines are important when parents are teaching their children about money and should always be remembered. These are some helpful guidelines prepared for the readers:

Advising is better than direct and dictates.

Encouraging and praising is better than criticizing.

Children will learn by their mistakes and by their success.

Remember to take each child’s differences in mind.

Money discussion, decision making, and activities should include the whole family member.

Explain to the children what they can and cannot do, and what will be the consequences if they violate the rules.

As children grow to include them in more serious discussions.