5 Strategies to Teach Your Children About Saving Money
by Barbara House

Engage your children using some of these simple, fun suggestions and help them learn the value of money:

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Barbara_House

1. Explain to your kids what money is all about. You can start doing this once you see that your kids are already able to learn how to count. The earlier you can teach a child or teenager about money, including earning money, saving money, and spending money responsibility, the better prepared they will be to manage their own money.

2. Talk to your child about the family budget. Allow them to ask questions about household finances and how you manage the household budget. Reinforce the learning process by budgeting for a family outing or a purchase.

3. Encourage children to start saving by opening a savings account for them. If they are younger, you can still make savings “real” to them by having them build their savings in a piggy bank or clear jar. You can motivate them to allot a portion of their allowance to their savings. If you have multiple children, one way to keep them motivated is by giving a prize to whoever earned the highest amount in their savings.

4. Explaining the value of spending money can also be done at home. You can assign some household chores and pay a small amount once they were able to do it. This will help them realize that money is not earned easily and should be spent wisely.

5. Show your children how an ATM machine works. While many children know that money doesn't grow on trees, they may think it comes out of a wall. Help your kids understand that you must put money in the bank before you can take it out.

When you discuss money with kids, you help them develop a sense of limits. You're teaching kids that the family has to make choices about how it can spend money. There's only so much money to go around — if you spend it on some things, you won't have it to spend on others. Teaching your children about saving money doesn’t have to be a difficult task. Remember to be patient and consistent, and your children will be able to learn this critical skill in an easy and fun way.

 6 Ways to Communicate Clearly with Your Teen

 1. Make Your Teen Your Focus

Give your teen your full attention. I know that this is a toughie, because we tend to be so busy. It seems like we are always multi-tasking. However, it is important in clear communicating that you make a point of stopping what you are doing and really listen to your teen (rather than just hearing them). When you give your teen your undivided attention they will know that you care, because you took the time to listen, and it will increase the chances that they will listen to you.

2. Get the Details

Hear what your teen is really saying! Teens tend to give terse answers to questions, leaving out details that may be important. It's up to you to be able to get them to open up and draw them into a conversation.

Here's an alternative:

This teen was able to express herself and felt validated by her parent. You will notice that the parent didn't argue about the feelings the teen had. You don't have to agree with your teen's feelings; just acknowledge them. There is no such thing as a wrong feeling. We can't help what our teens may feel, however, we should set limits on behaviors that don't satisfy what we consider appropriate behavior.

3. Open-Ended Questions

Questions can be crucial to communicating with your teen. Ask them questions that they can't just answer with a "yes" or a "no".

4. Criticize Behaviors, Not Your Teen

Now, let's move from the listening to the talking part of communication. When you want to see a change in your teen's behavior, use the "when you...I feel...because...I need ..." sentence. Using this wording (known as " I " message) doesn't attack your teen's personality; it merely talks about their action and that you'd like it changed and why.

Here is a scenario you might relate to: The chores haven't been done and your teen went out instead. This example shows not the best way of communicating by attacking them as a person and making statements you may not stick to anyways.

5. Let the Consequence Fit the Action

A fairly big problem that parents run into is looking for suitable punishment for broken rules. However, the penalty applied usually isn't related to the teen's action. As parents, we need to show our teens that each choice they make has consequences.

Parents tend to punish their teens by taking away something the adolescent enjoys; for example, no TV for a week. Take the above example of the unwashed laundry. It would be more beneficial to the development of your teen if you base the penalty on a natural connection between his action and the punishment. A good way of showing the consequences to his action in this instance would be having your teen do your chores as well as his next time, since you had to do his this time. When following this step you are practicing "silent communication" with your teen. Letting your teen experience the natural consequence of his actions speaks louder than any words ever would! It illustrates to them that they will be held accountable for what they do.

6. Using Descriptive Praise

We all praise our teen sometimes. We tell them "You are a smart kid" or "You are a good piano player" etc. We mean well, but unfortunately this kind of praise doesn't get the desired effect of making your teen feel good about himself. Why is that? It is because what we are doing is evaluating their actions. With this type of praise, we aren't giving evidence to support our claims, and this makes the praise fall flat, and seem empty and unconvincing.

Here is an example (evaluating praise): 

Describing your teen's action rather then evaluating them with an easy "good" or "great" or labeling like "slow learner" or "scatterbrain" isn't easy to do at first, because we are all unaccustomed to doing it. However, once you get into the habit of looking carefully at your teen's action and putting it into words what you see, you will do it more and more easily and with growing pleasure.

Adolescents need the kind of emotional nourishment that will help them become independent, creative thinkers and doers, so they aren't looking to others for approval all the time. With this sort of praise, teens will trust themselves and they won't need everybody else's opinion to tell them how they are doing.

5 Strategies to Teach Your Children About Saving Money
by Barbara House

Engage your children using some of these simple, fun suggestions and help them learn the value of money:

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Barbara_House

1. Explain to your kids what money is all about. You can start doing this once you see that your kids are already able to learn how to count. The earlier you can teach a child or teenager about money, including earning money, saving money, and spending money responsibility, the better prepared they will be to manage their own money.

2. Talk to your child about the family budget. Allow them to ask questions about household finances and how you manage the household budget. Reinforce the learning process by budgeting for a family outing or a purchase.

3. Encourage children to start saving by opening a savings account for them. If they are younger, you can still make savings “real” to them by having them build their savings in a piggy bank or clear jar. You can motivate them to allot a portion of their allowance to their savings. If you have multiple children, one way to keep them motivated is by giving a prize to whoever earned the highest amount in their savings.

4. Explaining the value of spending money can also be done at home. You can assign some household chores and pay a small amount once they were able to do it. This will help them realize that money is not earned easily and should be spent wisely.

5. Show your children how an ATM machine works. While many children know that money doesn't grow on trees, they may think it comes out of a wall. Help your kids understand that you must put money in the bank before you can take it out.

When you discuss money with kids, you help them develop a sense of limits. You're teaching kids that the family has to make choices about how it can spend money. There's only so much money to go around — if you spend it on some things, you won't have it to spend on others. Teaching your children about saving money doesn’t have to be a difficult task. Remember to be patient and consistent, and your children will be able to learn this critical skill in an easy and fun way.

 6 Ways to Communicate Clearly with Your Teen

 1. Make Your Teen Your Focus

Give your teen your full attention. I know that this is a toughie, because we tend to be so busy. It seems like we are always multi-tasking. However, it is important in clear communicating that you make a point of stopping what you are doing and really listen to your teen (rather than just hearing them). When you give your teen your undivided attention they will know that you care, because you took the time to listen, and it will increase the chances that they will listen to you.

2. Get the Details

Hear what your teen is really saying! Teens tend to give terse answers to questions, leaving out details that may be important. It's up to you to be able to get them to open up and draw them into a conversation.

Here's an alternative:

This teen was able to express herself and felt validated by her parent. You will notice that the parent didn't argue about the feelings the teen had. You don't have to agree with your teen's feelings; just acknowledge them. There is no such thing as a wrong feeling. We can't help what our teens may feel, however, we should set limits on behaviors that don't satisfy what we consider appropriate behavior.

3. Open-Ended Questions

Questions can be crucial to communicating with your teen. Ask them questions that they can't just answer with a "yes" or a "no".

4. Criticize Behaviors, Not Your Teen

Now, let's move from the listening to the talking part of communication. When you want to see a change in your teen's behavior, use the "when you...I feel...because...I need ..." sentence. Using this wording (known as " I " message) doesn't attack your teen's personality; it merely talks about their action and that you'd like it changed and why.

Here is a scenario you might relate to: The chores haven't been done and your teen went out instead. This example shows not the best way of communicating by attacking them as a person and making statements you may not stick to anyways.

5. Let the Consequence Fit the Action

A fairly big problem that parents run into is looking for suitable punishment for broken rules. However, the penalty applied usually isn't related to the teen's action. As parents, we need to show our teens that each choice they make has consequences.

Parents tend to punish their teens by taking away something the adolescent enjoys; for example, no TV for a week. Take the above example of the unwashed laundry. It would be more beneficial to the development of your teen if you base the penalty on a natural connection between his action and the punishment. A good way of showing the consequences to his action in this instance would be having your teen do your chores as well as his next time, since you had to do his this time. When following this step you are practicing "silent communication" with your teen. Letting your teen experience the natural consequence of his actions speaks louder than any words ever would! It illustrates to them that they will be held accountable for what they do.

6. Using Descriptive Praise

We all praise our teen sometimes. We tell them "You are a smart kid" or "You are a good piano player" etc. We mean well, but unfortunately this kind of praise doesn't get the desired effect of making your teen feel good about himself. Why is that? It is because what we are doing is evaluating their actions. With this type of praise, we aren't giving evidence to support our claims, and this makes the praise fall flat, and seem empty and unconvincing.

Here is an example (evaluating praise): 

Describing your teen's action rather then evaluating them with an easy "good" or "great" or labeling like "slow learner" or "scatterbrain" isn't easy to do at first, because we are all unaccustomed to doing it. However, once you get into the habit of looking carefully at your teen's action and putting it into words what you see, you will do it more and more easily and with growing pleasure.

Adolescents need the kind of emotional nourishment that will help them become independent, creative thinkers and doers, so they aren't looking to others for approval all the time. With this sort of praise, teens will trust themselves and they won't need everybody else's opinion to tell them how they are doing.