Do you remember when you started reading to your children? If you are like me, this process likely began at a young age. I was very fortunate because my dad read to me right from the start. So that\u2019s what I did. In fact, I\u2019m fairly certain that reading to my kids from day one was one of the only things I felt initially qualified to do as a parent. The point I want to make, though, isn\u2019t that I expected them to be able to read or even understand what it was I was reading to them. I just wanted to expose them to the highly valuable experience of reading. We now know about this thing called emergent literacy and that the building blocks for learning how to read and write start incredibly early. Heck, some folks even read to their kids in the womb. Or is that just an LA thing?<\/p>\n
My perspective on teaching financial literacy for kids is much the same. The good folks at the Networks Research Institute first coined the term emergent financial literacy in the paper\u00a0I cited in a recent blog post<\/a>\u00a0and it\u2019s something that I\u2019ve spent much of my life as a dad trying to help other dads, moms and kids with.\u00a0You can check out my blog for lots more on this topic<\/a>, but if there\u2019s any one takeaway I hope you get from this post, it\u2019s that you should start the money conversation with your little ones early – when they are in preschool. Of course, just as with reading, you expect them to start saving for college or shorting the housing market right off the bat. I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve noticed, though, that most kids are being trained in the art of consumption by the time they\u2019re two. They need exposure to messages that aren\u2019t just about spending. Advertisers are targeting our young kids and even if you try minimize media exposure, the messaging is almost unavoidable out there in the world (stores, schools, billboards, etc.). Therefore, we have to start talking to them about other choices that they can make with money, including sharing (or charitable giving), saving and spending SMART form a young age.<\/p>\n