A question generally arises as to why you should be teaching kids about money when they are young. If you have gone through the parenting cycle then you know that when your kids are young you can do nothing wrong and as your kids become teenagers you can do nothing right! Since your kids still look at you as their hero when they are young then it becomes the ideal time to teach them about money.

There is a biblical proverb that says, “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” This proverb parallels greatly with a period of development in your child called the Imprint Period. This is a period of development from birth to seven years old when children copy what people do in the world around them without conscious awareness. They will often copy the people they spend the most time with. Whether you realize it or not your children are watching you. They are looking at what you are doing and copying your behavior. Automatically this begs a question, “If my kids do everything I do would I be happy with them?” If you answer no then you obviously need to change some behavior.

How does this work when teaching kids about money? Well the same rules apply. Every conversation you have, every bill you worry about, every dollar you waste, every time you choose not to save money, you are modeling behavior that your children will soon copy. Do you ever notice how bad financial habits tend to go from one generation to the next? In the same way do you notice how good financial habits tend to also go from one generation to the next? The issue will be what type of habits you are going to model because you are imprinting your kids in this early stage.

In the early stages of life your children are excited about pleasing mommy and daddy. It makes sense to use this time to pour into them as many good financial habits as possible. One day a switch will go off in their head and they will stop trying to please you. Pleasing parents will take a back seat to pleasing their friends. I bet you wish you knew when that day would happen. Since you don’t you have to trust that the good habits you instill in your children when they are young, they will return to as they get older. Even though there may be a period of rebellion in between.

Teaching your kids about money is all about timing. You have a window of opportunity where your children will be a mirror copying everything you do. Take advantage of these moments and model the best behavior you can for your children. Remember the day is coming when they will not want to copy you anymore but hopefully the foundation will have already been set for them.