Hi, I'm Nicholeen Peck and I teach all over the world about parenting, good relationships
and how to help children through their developmental stages of life. In this video,
we're going to be talking about how to teach children the value of money.
In this video, we're going to be talking about why parents want to teach their children the
value of money and what you can do to help your children learn the value of money. So we have a
situation in our culture right now, especially in the Western society where children are becoming
more and more entitled. They're expecting to have more benefit for less work. In fact,
for many people they are thinking that this is what the American dream means. Boy,
are they ever wrong. The American dream actually means you can work as hard as you want to improve
your situation in life, to get more gain. You don't have to be stuck anywhere. You
can always work to improve your circumstances. So you see how that's just the opposite from I
get to decide what I want my circumstances to be and then let somebody else provide
for them because that's entitlement, right? And that's not the American way. Well anyway,
people are not wanting their children to be stuck in these entitlement traps where they're
demanding certain things from them. They want them to understand that money does have value
and that they should want to work to get some of that money. But what parents don't always know
is how to help their children get that mindset in a healthy way because there are some people
who start thinking of everything in dollars and cents. In fact, they can't give money to other
people. They become very stingy. Parents don't want their children to have that problem either.
So how do you help your children understand money but also know how to give their money
or resources in other ways to help other people? That type of a dynamic requires a certain way of
living. So in our family, we wanted our children to understand the value of money, meaning they
knew how to work hard and knew how to earn money. But we also wanted them to just give freely of
themselves too and not always think that every single thing they did they should get money
for because that creates a different type of entitlement and a disconnection from people
around you and a lack of a feeling for serving others as well. We didn't want our children to
be selfish. We wanted them to always be able to give, but to know that money was worth something
too and to work hard to get the money that they needed for their future. And so we developed a
way of parenting our children in the way that we structured our family time that would lend toward
that. The way that you attach or detach from money has a lot to do with your environment.
So that's important to understand the type of environment that you create in your home,
the conversations that you have in your home, the way that you allow your children to earn money and
not, and how you help them use their money and not are all factors in helping your children develop a
good healthy understanding of the value of money. So let's talk first about the conversations around
money. I think that's important. Many parents don't recognize it,
but as they talk again and again about money in the presence of their children, it actually
worries their children. Sometimes if the parents seem stressed in the conversation about money,
the children will actually take on some of that negative association that the parents are having
with money and they'll end up having a negative association too. So you want to make sure that
money, when you talk about it, is talked about something that's useful, something that you can
always work harder to get more of. So make no big deal. Don't talk about money as if it controls
you. I think parents really do a disservice to their children by acting as if money, prices,
inflation and everything control them. We always have control over our ability to work
and our ability to budget and plan and to decide that we are okay no matter our circumstances.
And that is really empowering to children. So my dad was a public school teacher and we
had five children in our family and if you know anything about public school teachers,
they don't make a ton of money, especially in the state where I live. They didn't make a lot
of money when I was a child and I remember I had free lunch at school sometimes when I was little
and stuff like that because when your parent's a school teacher, it's really easy to get free lunch
because they know your parent's a school teacher and you don't make that much money anyway. And so
I remember feeling like, oh, is this weird? Is this bad or whatever cause other kids,
they're paying for their lunch, but I'm not. And should I be grateful? Should I be embarrassed? I
didn't know. A lot of times I was embarrassed. I didn't tell anyone about it and I know my
mom worried a lot about money. She would mention things about money, but dad always acted like,
no big deal. I can always work more and he was always making other businesses. So he did
National Guard duty on the side. He worked for a gas station at night for a while. He started a
landscaping business. He did an office cleaning business. He did so many different things that
man was constantly working and he did all of the extras that he could do at school too,
just to make a little bit more money. So he would be at the baseball games or basketball games,
selling tickets and earn an extra $50 for that. We saw him work and you know what he
did? He took us along with the work because he didn't get a lot of opportunity to spend time
with us because he was working so hard to provide for our family and he really
did feel like he should be a school teacher. So he knew he had to be creative to figure it out,
how to pay for a big family when he was going to be a school teacher and ultimately he did
end up working all of that out and the thing is, we always had enough, sure, sometimes we wore some
other people's clothes and hand me downs from a neighbor or something like that. But we always
were able to do the lessons and play the sports that we wanted to play and wear what we needed
to wear and they taught us that it was all okay because dad always had this mindset of it's fine.
I'm not going to be worried about it. I'm not stressed over it. He never hung a dollar amount
of something over our heads. It was really a neat upbringing actually. Anyway they did do something
for us that made a big difference though. So I'm going to tell you about some of the
things my parents did for me and how me and my husband took those things to kind of the next
level. But before I do, click subscribe now, this channel is for you. It's to help you in
your family to help with your relationships and with your own personal development so that you
can have the type of family that you want to have and so that you can be better at self-governing
yourselves as well. So click subscribe now. All right. So what was it that dad did? Not only
did he take us along to work with him, which was huge because we learned to work alongside
him and we didn't get paid either. We just worked with him to help provide for the family. But they
also worked with us on other days of the week. So Saturday mornings we were constantly working
with him. My brothers were helping him in his landscaping business and they got paid little
bits, but dad got the lion's share of it. But they also, they did not pay us allowances and
stuff like that other people did. Instead, they helped us learn how to start businesses and make
money. So we saw dad start businesses. We also saw mom start businesses. She had a business
where she would babysit other people's children. She also sold different things, Tupperware and
Ingrid and I don't even know all the names of the different things that she sold because she
wanted to make some extra money too and she taught classes in the local community and stuff
like that so that she could make a little extra bit to help with what the family needed to stay
afloat. They taught us work, they taught us how to start businesses and we all did great at it.
My brothers started businesses. I started a business. I had a really lucrative babysitting
business where I was babysitting for a lot of different people's children and I always
was doing enrichment activities cause I took it to the next level. I wasn't just going to babysit,
I was going to clean their house when I was there. I was going to play games with their
children the whole time, never turn on the tv. I was going to do a great job. And so consequently,
I had the most babysitting jobs of anybody in the neighborhood. So anyway they taught us how to work
with integrity and see what people needed and try to fill in those needs. But the other thing that
they did that I'm grateful for is they said, Kay, when you hit at the age of 12, then you're going
to have to buy your own clothes and stuff and that this is clothes for school and everything.
And I thought, okay and so we hit the age right at the age where you want name brand things
and I had to buy stuff for myself. So I had to shop deals and specials and learn how to, I'm not
going to get that one yet. I'm going to wait maybe and see if it will be on clearance in a couple of
weeks or in a month when not as many people want that particular season of clothes anymore. And so
I had to learn how to price shop, to be patient, to have delayed gratification. I had to wait for
stuff, save for stuff, and I had to pay for my own stuff. These were all things that my husband
and I looked at and thought, okay, now how do we use those same principles of that good upbringing
to help our children? Because I have to say my husband had a little bit different situation.
His parents gave him money a lot. Now he wanted to earn money himself, but his dad would just kind
of hand him a $20 bill or something like that, especially because he was one of the youngest. I
was one of the oldest children and when you're an oldest child, there's a lot of other people
that need the money still in the house. When you're the youngest, it's not the same. And
so he was a little bit more entitled than me, but he knew he didn't wanna raise his children
to just come to him for money all the time. So we wanted to do something else. Even though my
husband wasn't a public school teacher and our financial situation was a little different. We
didn't want money to be this thing that was taken for granted. So what we decided to do was also
tell our children that they got the opportunity at age 12 to pay for all of their clothing.
This includes shoes as well as any birthday gifts, Christmas gifts, stuff like that that they want
to give to other people. Of course, this would also include souvenirs when we go out of town,
stuff like that. So they got the opportunity to buy all of those things for themselves. It's
amazing what happens when you just tell a child, Hey, now you get to pay for your own clothes.
They look at their shoes, they look at their clothes, and they start not just leaving them
in a heap on the floor, they start putting them away better. They start keeping them cleaner
and watching out for their stuff a little bit better. So this teaches them right then that
those things that are bought with money have a little bit of value to them. So we
also taught our children. My husband and I are both, I would say more careful people.
We're the type of people that we take care of whatever we have and we expected our
children to do the same. So we didn't ever wanna live in a junkie environment and have
things broken or walls with holes in them all the time. If something gets broken, we affix
it immediately. And so our children also got to learn to take care of their things so we made
sure that that was part of their training. This helped them understand also the value of money,
but sometimes they needed to make money and we had certain things that we did for that as well. So we
work with our children all the time. We work with them daily. We have family work time, which is
usually at least a half hour, sometimes a couple of hours depending on what time of year it is.
During the harvest season and growing season, we might be working out in the yard for a few hours,
sometimes even a whole day during the summertime. So they each did their daily tasks. Then we also
gave our children the opportunity to earn extra chores as part of being corrected for something
that they needed to fix. So our children worked a lot and none of that work got paid because we
told them as part of our family, everyone works here and everyone contributes, that's just how
it goes. Mom and dad don't get paid for working at the house and neither to do the children. We
all work together as part of a group. And so they didn't get an allowance or anything like that,
but we did give them the opportunity to apply for a job. So like my parents, we taught our
children how to start businesses and they did start various businesses. Some of them were
complete fails. I remember when London decided one time that she was going to have a water
sale and she was going to sell cups of water. It didn't go over very well, but she learned
the hard way. So anyway, they all sold different things and started different services that they
could do in the community, like lawn care and stuff like that. And they did a great job at
earning money and they also applied for jobs with my business, my husband's business and at our
house. Now when they were young, I made a list of things that needed to happen and it was an ongoing
list. So I might write something like organize the pantry or clean out the game closet or sweep the
garage or disinfect the refrigerator or something like that. Clean all the fronts of the cupboards,
maybe some chores that I've been meaning to get to but I haven't gotten around to for a
while. I put 'em on the list and then my children knew. They could always come to me, look at the
list and say, I would like to apply for a job. So then I would say, okay, well it looks like to
clean out the garage. It's $10, it's probably going to take about this many hours and they
would say, yeah, I'm going to start the job at this time and I hope to finish it by this time.
So they would tell me, I'm going to start it now and then, and if it wasn't ready to end,
then they would need to come and talk to me about it and then we would agree on the
amount and they would go out and do the job. So that was another way we taught our children the
value of money. So children need to spend money, but it's not valuable if someone just gives it
to them. Children also need to be able to save money and they need to be able to earn money,
but they also need to learn how to work and that work alone has value. So if they
work sometimes for no money, work, other times for some money, and they're able to save for
certain things they might need or want as well as spend when they have some money because they
are wanting to use it, then they should learn the value of money. If this video was useful to you,
I'm pretty sure that you'll enjoy my next video, which is all about teaching your
children's self-government in their behaviors and teaching them the skills they need for success. It
is called the Not So Known Secret for Parenting Success. It's a full class that will give you
a lot of takeaways that you can use to help your children communicate calmly with you and with each
other. So click on the not so known secret for parenting success right now. I'll see you there.