One thing I know for sure – and you’ll hear me say over and over again is this: It’s never too early to start talking to your kids about money! I try to find spontaneous moments in my daily life where I can share with my kids about money. But, I try to teach them about money in a more structured way, too.
One way my husband and I do this is by holding Family Money Meetings. These meetings are designed for us to discuss and explain to our kids the process of earning money, spending money, and saving money.
What is a Family Money Meeting and why should we have one?
We had our very first family money meeting when we first introduced our kids to our chore and money system. The meeting was to discuss the new process and to make sure everyone was on the same page. We also wanted to get them excited about it.
We encouraged them to propose their own ideas or input into the new process and you can do the same with your kids. The more involved they are, the more likely they are to stick to the plan. If their ideas make sense and you can accommodate it, add it.
We now incorporate these Family Money Meetings into our schedule every few months to check in on the process and make sure everything is still working for everyone. We will also call a meeting sooner if there is an issue that needs to be addressed or a system that needs to be changed.
Here are 5 things we discuss at our Family Money Meeting
Rules
The first thing we need to discuss with our kids in a Family Money Meeting are the rules! The kids need to know what is expected of them. This should be very clear, down to the days things will be done and to what standard they will be completed. The more clear you can be about expectations, the more likely your kids will be successful.
Ramifications
Next, you need to discuss consequences. Discuss ramifications for things not being done, i.e. lose money and screen time. Be clear to explain that in the real world, people get fired if they don’t do their jobs.
Pay Day
For this topic, you want to let them know exactly what day each week they will be paid. Also, discuss what will happen each payday (see below).
Money Banks
After you talk to your kids about their pay day, you want to make sure they have a clear plan for what they will do with that money once they are paid. We suggest setting your kids up with three money banks: one for savings, one for spending, and one for sharing. You want to explain the three types of money banks they will have and talk about how they are different.
Once they receive their pay, they will be expected to divide up their pay into the 3 money bins. I leave it up to them to decide where their money goes but the only thing I do reinforce is that something has to go into each bin. You could make it so that it’s a standard % like 40/40/20 or any variation–really it’s up to you. Keep in mind that you will want to pay them in denominations that would be easy for them to divide, whether it’s quarters or bills.
Tracking
Next, you’ll want to talk to your kids about keeping track of how much money they have in each bank. Explain to them that each time they add in or take out money, they will need to track it. This is so they will always know how much money they really have. Then they can properly decide whether they can afford that new toy or not.
In the beginning and depending on their age, you will be more involved with helping them figure this out or be supervising. This is to make sure they understand what to do.
Last week, I told you about my business peer who had sent her daughter off to college. Within a few weeks, she’d heard from her daughter who had thanked her for teaching her life skills like how to cook, clean, and do laundry.
My kids aren’t that old yet, but I know if I receive that call one day, I’ll be beaming! As moms, isn’t that what we all hope for – well prepared kids who “get it”? We all want our kids to learn how to be well prepared adults and to really understand why we chose to teach them those particular things.
This conversation sparked an idea for a series of blog posts on the top life skills kids are needing to learn now more than ever. We kicked off the series last week with personal finance management. This week, for part two, we’ll be chatting about cooking and cleaning.
HOW TO COOK
Many people are astonished by the lack of cooking skills among today’s young generation. While this is the era of ready-made meals and fast food, you shouldn’t consider the ability to cook as just a survival skill. The enjoyment of knowing how to cook is priceless. When done properly, home-cooked food has a beneficial effect on your health and the health of your wallet.
Even if it’s just macaroni and cheese, the ability to cook a meal and eat it is a necessary life skill—it’ll save them lots of money when their favorite takeout restaurant is closed for a holiday or it can be a feather in their cap when they are able to host a party and cook for a group of co-workers for the evening.
Starting the process of getting your kids comfortable in the kitchen can begin at an early age, too. It’s easy and fun to teach very small kids about baking. There are even creative ways to mix in simple math activities while measuring out ingredients. As they get older and have more attention and understanding of kitchen safety, you can move on to teaching them more difficult cooking techniques like sauteing, roasting, and grilling.
Knowing how to cook their own meals will save our kids money, calories, time, and could even impress their future partner down the line.
HOW TO CLEAN
From making our beds to laundry basics, our kids all need to learn basic housekeeping skills. For our kids, keeping a tidy house is a life skill that ensures the health of their own future family, keeps them organized and able to find what they need, and ultimately saves them money so they can keep living the ‘good life’.
It’s also proven that organization in the home help kids think more clearly in school. Organizing a home is more than just straightening up. It involves actual cleaning, organizing, and developing systems and routines to remain clean and organized.
You can begin this process by getting kids involved in your household chore systems. We do a lot with our kids around involving them in chores. They learn life skills and earn money in the process. It’s a win-win!
How to do Laundry
We’ve written quite a bit about training your kids to do their own laundry as well as easy laundry hacks, so I’m sure you can tell that this life skill was a big one for us. Getting my kids to do their own laundry has been a huge time saver for us!
We recommend introducing laundry to your kids in phases and you can find the entire process, here. Of course, it can be much quicker (and less frustrating) to simply do it yourself. But, that phone call from your kids at college thanking you for teaching them to do this will be so, so worth it!
It’s clear that our kids need life skills now more than ever. As their parents, it is our job to teach them. Teaching kids how to cook and clean and handle their laundry can be some of the most basic but necessary skills. Additionally, you can start with these skills when they’re quite young and make them fun! Come back next week for part three where we’ll be chatting about relationship skills.
In the meantime, you can grab our completely FREE Family Chore and Money System Action Guide, here. You can also hop over to Facebook and watch me walk through how to use it, here. If you’d like even more support, let’s chat about 1:1 coaching and I’ll help you set up a systems and routines that will work for your unique family.⠀
Deciding whether or not to implement a chore system in your home can be tricky. There are many factors that may weigh on your decision as to if it is the right time for your family to get started with a chore system. Some things to consider are your kids ages, physical abilities, cognitive abilities, and ability to adjust to new routines.
In our home, for our kids, we are in favor of establishing chore systems early. This is because of the multitude of positive values having a chore system has taught our children. Four particular values stand out to us as the most important.
Here are the top 4 values your kids will learn when you begin to implement a chore system in your home:
Responsibility
Teaching kids about responsibility can be a little tricky because it’s multifaceted. There are multiple ways to approach responsibility – being responsible, acting responsibly, having responsibilities, and taking responsibility. The common thread is that they all relate to doing what is expected of us.
Responsibility is an important trait to instill in our children because it opens their eyes to expectations. When children take on new responsibilities, it establishes rules, habits, and routines that form the basis for all future interactions. Assigning your child chores gives them something they can be responsible for and take ownership of.
Establishing the value of responsibility leads to trust and freedom within your parent-child relationship. It also leads right into accountability, as this is what your child will need to acknowledge if they are not responsible, acting responsibly, or taking care of their responsibilities.
Accountability
Once your kids understand responsibility, it becomes easier for them to grasp the concept of accountability, too. When your child takes responsibility for their actions, their items, or their mistakes – the idea of accountability grows clear. Accountability does not need to have a negative connotation. Accountability is owning up to something you’ve done wrong or failed to do and accepting the consequences.
For kids, accountability is all about taking ownership of and following through with their responsibilities. The follow through is the sweet spot where your kids will see the results of their hard work and begin to feel pride in what they are doing.
Our goal in establishing chore systems is to help our kids understand that being accountable for their actions and responsibilities means they are holding themselves to a high standard
Habits and Routines
Developing habits and routines are an integral part of running any happy household. Kids thrive on routines. When kids develop positive habits and routines, they know what to expect, feel secure and supported, and release anxiety.
There’s also positive benefits for the parents. For you, it will look like less nagging and reminding, you’ll be less stressed, and you’ll have more time together as a family.
Habits and routines in a home teach kids how to self-manage, work together as a family, and create a home environment that is full of positivity. Chore systems easily become a part of your family routine and habits. Kids know and expect they will be handling their assigned tasks and they welcome the comfort of this consistency.
Independence
Our ultimate goal as parents is to set our kids up to be successful adults. Of course, we want to keep them safe – but we also want them to grow into independent, healthy, and happy adults. As a parent, there is a delicate balance between guiding our kids and letting them care for themselves, when the time comes.
When you establish chore systems in your home, you will watch your children become more independent right in front of your eyes. As they take responsibility for their chores, accept accountability, and develop their routines – they will begin to need your support and guidance around these particular chores less and less.
When children develop independence, they become equipped with necessary life skills, self sufficient, empowered, and confident. As parents, isn’t that what we all want for our children?
Are you ready to implement a family chore system in your home but you just don’t know how to get started or get yourself organized? We’ve got you covered! Grab our totally FREE Family Chore and Money System Action Guide and we will walk you through the step-by-step process of designing, implementing, and sticking to a plan that works for your family.
When I was in elementary school, I was made fun of quite a bit because I looked and dressed differently. Thankfully it never went any further than name calling.
But even with just that, those childhood memories are still ingrained in me. And I’m not the only one. It seems more and more that we’re hearing about people who were bullied in much the same way as children.
Kids can be so mean and hurtful and the bad part is, they may not even realize they are doing it. They either haven’t had someone to teach them that the behavior is unacceptable, or they haven’t learned exactly how to behave properly.
One thing I knew for sure about having kids of my own was that I was going to make sure they knew how to stand up for themselves and even more important, that they aren’t the ones being the bully.
Some things I emphasize with my kids on an ongoing basis about bullying:
Utilize teachable moments (i.e. tv/movie bullying scenes, real life examples). This is a great way to engage them in a conversation about what their thoughts are when watching these scenes and how it should have been handled.
Ignore the kids that aren’t being nice. Most of the time, bullies will only continue to bother you if they know they can get a reaction from you. If you ignore them, they will move on and leave you alone.
Engage your kids in activities that boosts their confidence and self-esteem. This can include sports and other extra-curriculars that help give them confidence. But it can also be from giving them tasks and jobs around the house, helping them get that boost of accomplishment.
On the other hand, what’s even more important is that my kids know it’s never ok to treat others badly. With that in mind, I ask them to remember that they should always:
Be kind
Be helpful
Be considerate
Stand up for others
Not say anything if they don’t have any nice to say
Put yourself in the shoes of others and ask yourself if you would want that to happen to you
For more information, check out these bullying resources:
At the park or playing ball – your kids can be prepared for the sun AND accidents with a first aid kit designed exclusively with you and your kids in mind.
Would you agree that kids tend to give up too easily?
My kids sure do.
Take my daughter and her homework for example. When she gets stuck on a problem, she gets really frustrated and whines about how she cannot figure it out.
She ends up sitting there, pouting…which leads to no homework being done.
So, what does mommy or daddy do? We come over and tell her how to do it. Which is all fine and dandy because we do want her to know that we’re there for her when she needs help.
The problem was in how we, as her parents, were helping her.
Instead of guiding her into figuring out the solution to the problem herself, we were essentially giving her the answers.
Instead of having her attempt to talk out loud her thought process to figure out where she is actually getting stuck and what exactly she doesn’t understand, we tend to jump in a little too early.
Anyone else guilty of jumping in too soon to help their kids?
She was not thinking for herself. What kids these days are missing is that critical thinking component.
Here are a few ways we take away from our kids’ independence:
Tell them the answer right away
Do it for them
Tell them how we think the task should be done
Ways we let kids think for themselevs and become more independent:
Ask your kids to explain what they’re stuck on
Give kids questions to think about as a way to guide them on what they need to ask themselves next to figure the problem out
One thing I’m working on with my kids is how to manage their time, especially in the morning.
Now this didn’t happen overnight, but we’ve gotten them on a morning routine that they are now used to.
They wake up, brush their teeth, get dressed, make their beds, come downstairs, get their backpacks ready to go, unload the dishwasher and eat breakfast.
My daughter does not like being tardy but she’s probably the one that drags her feet the most.
Most days she is good about getting her list done. Some days, like today, we’re twenty minutes from needing to leave the house and she has barely walked down the stairs.
Normally, I would jump in and remind them of the time and how they’ll be late if they don’t hurry up.
Nope!
This time, I just let them be.
Eventually one of them noticed what time it was, and they got their act together.
We made it to school with 1 minute to spare but the entire time during the car ride there, they were quite nervous. Especially when we had to stop at each red light.
But the lesson here is that if I don’t let them figure things out for themselves and learn things the hard way, then I am not doing them any favors.
The quicker I let them fail and learn from their mistakes, the better it is for them in the long run.
An excellent example I got from another mom that I’m starting to implement with my own kids now is what I call, the Power of 3.
If they have a problem, they need to figure out for themselves three different ways they can solve that problem before coming to an adult to get help.
This could be anything. The key is that when they come asking for help, they need to list out the three things they did to figure it out for themselves.
This promotes independence, self-reliance, critical thinking, problem solving skills, and confidence while preventing co-dependency, low self-esteem and lack of confidence. And who doesn’t want that for our kids?
Help Your Kids Be Prepared for Accidents!
At the park or playing ball – your kids can be prepared for the sun AND accidents with a first aid kit designed exclusively with you and your kids in mind.
Part of being a good parent is teaching your kids to be self-sufficient and responsible. And part of that means doing your own laundry. Getting my kids to do their own laundry has been a huge time saver for us! The earlier you can get this routine implemented with your own kids, the easier it will be for you and your family.
Don’t Push Your Kids – But Don’t Wait Too Long Either!
Please remember, every child is different and develops at a different pace. But that being said, overall, kids are more capable of doing things on their own than we give them credit for. (Let’s face it—if they can operate a smart phone or video game system, they can do their own laundry!)
The problem is that we either subconsciously don’t want them to be independent or we think that it will just be quicker and easier if we do it ourselves instead of taking the time to teach them how to do it.
The Best Way to Teach Laundry Responsibility To Your Kids
The best way to do all of this is to introduce laundry to them in phases. When they’re younger, get them involved in the laundry process with you. Let them see you sorting, washing, drying, folding, and putting the clothes away. Be sure to explain what you’re doing as you go so they can understand it.
Teach Kids in Phases All the Parts of Laundering
As your kids get older, you can let them join you in doing different parts of the laundry. This can include simple tasks like sorting their own clothes out into a pile to fold or have them fold something simple with you like shorts or small towels.
The idea is that eventually, over time, they will become used to all the different processes and (with a little supervision in the beginning) you can let them do each part of the laundry process on their own.
The phases my kids went through when they were learning to do laundry:
Phase 1 — Put their folded clothes away
Phase 2 — Fold their own clothes + Phase 1
Phase 3 — Take their clothes out of the dryer + Phase 2 + Phase 1
Phase 4 — Take their clothes out of the washer and put them in the dryer + Phase 3 + Phase 2 + Phase 1
Phase 5 — Put their dirty clothes into the washer + Phased 4 + Phase 3 + Phase 2 + Phase 1
Phase 6 — Put detergent and fabric softener in and start the washing machine + Phase 5 + Phase 4 + Phase 3 + Phase 2 + Phase 1
A Little Investment of Time, Pays Off Eventually
I think I started my kids on this process when they were 5 and 7, although I definitely could have involved them in it a lot earlier. Now they are 8 and 10 and they’re doing their entire laundry on their own. (Up until last week, my oldest was taking care of measuring out the detergent. But now, the 8-year-old wants to learn how to pour out the detergent, so he’s getting there!)
It is SOOOOO worth it to take that extra time and effort to train the kids on these processes. I know sometimes it’s much quicker to just do it yourself. But in the long run, your kids will learn how to be more self-sufficient and you won’t regret the decision to teach them when they are young.
Struggle with staying on top of your bills and budgeting?
Do you stress out and dread when the 1st of the month rolls around?
Tired of living paycheck to paycheck?
Have constant arguments with your spouse around the family finances?
Have no clue on how to even get in control of your financial life?
Download this FREE Monthly Budgeting Action Plan, which includes Worksheets with step by step instructions on guiding you exactly on what you need to do to set up your own family budgeting plan that works for you and your family.
Struggle with staying on top of your bills and budgeting?
Do you stress out and dread when the 1st of the month rolls around?
Tired of living paycheck to paycheck?
Have constant arguments with your spouse around the family finances?
Have no clue on how to even get in control of your financial life?
Download this FREE Monthly Budgeting Action Plan, which includes Worksheets with step by step instructions on guiding you exactly on what you need to do to set up your own family budgeting plan that works for you and your family.
Do you struggle with getting your kids to clean up their room?
Are you ready for your kids to be more responsible?
Would you like your kids to be able to manage their time better?
Ready for a simple way to teach your kids good money management habits?
Download this FREE Family Chore and Money System Action Guide. It includes worksheets with step by step instructions on guiding you exactly what you need to do to set up your own chore, schedule and money management plans.
One thing I know for sure – and you’ll hear me say over and over again is this: It’s never too early to start talking to your kids about money! I try to find spontaneous 
Deciding whether or not to implement a chore system in your home can be tricky. There are many factors that may weigh on your decision as to if it is the right time for your family to get started with a chore system. Some things to consider are your kids ages, physical abilities, cognitive abilities, and ability to adjust to new routines. 
Developing
