How to Train Teens to Manage Money
Teens love to spend money on their favorite items but without any concepts of money management. Denise Witmer shares how parents can train their teens conserve money and how to spend money properly with a step-by-step plan.
“Teens need to learn how to crawl before they learn how to walk. A steady climb in how much money they receive and what they are responsible to purchase and/or save with that money is my suggestion. Slowly going from having no responsibility with their money to having full responsibility for their personal purchases is the easiest for them to understand, and the least frustrating way to teach a teen money management……”
The training strategies we use should meet the different needs of kid at certain age, for example:
- Starting with the age of 12, give them “blow money”, i.e. 1 to 5 dollars a week to manage.
- From the ages of 13 to 14, add money amount with greater responsibility.
- From the ages of 15 to 16, have them budget their own clothing etc.
- From the ages of 17 to 18, give them monthly allowance, and with a bank account.
Most importantly, parents need to have some follow-up techniques and monitor procedure because kids always want to test their parents’ boundary. In this article, Denise has also given the idea of how to go about follow-up.
Teaching Money Management - [ parentingteens.about.com ]