With the progress of the times and the rapid development of economy, more and more parents know the importance of financial education, so they begin to give their children pocket money. However, these parents did not think deeply, and their ideas and practices on how to cultivate their children's financial management concepts were very vague. They even give their children pocket money according to their current intuition, or change the rules at will just by intuition. These types of parents will find it difficult to make timely adjustments to their children's emergencies.
I often hear an example. Wenwen is an only child. Because her parents are often busy with work, they don't have much time to take care of their daughter. They are afraid that their daughter has no money, so they often give her more pocket money than her age to make up for their guilt that they can't accompany Wen Wen. Besides, no matter what Wen Wen wants, her parents will try their best to satisfy her. As for how Wen Wen uses her pocket money, they never care.
So Wenwen has developed the habit of spending money like running water. Every time I go shopping with my mother, she will buy a bunch of goods, which is very fulfilling. Because of the unrestrained consumption in Wenwen, Wenwen has no pocket money available every time near the end of the month, so she will ask her parents for more pocket money.
Consumption habits that must be cultivated since childhood
Many cases similar to Wen Wen have different performances in different children, and everything depends on how parents re-educate their children with money. For example, if a child decides to spend all his pocket money in the middle of the month or even at the beginning of the month, he will surely think that he will have no pocket money to buy his favorite stationery, candy he wants to eat, cute little dolls and other consequences for a long time to come, and he will bear the consequences of spending all his pocket money on impulse.
Because life is full of many different trade-off decisions, when making a choice, we should not only consider the cost of the decision itself, but also consider the highest price of the option abandoned because of this decision. All the choices and the cultivation of sense of responsibility will be gradually established with the discussion and coordination between parents and children on the acquisition and expenditure of pocket money.
In fact, all kinds of bad phenomena in children's consumption behavior are closely related to their parents' usual consumption habits. Some parents want to cultivate their children's good financial management values, but they can't do it themselves, so they can't set up a good financial management model for their children.
Tingting, a friend of the author, is the best example. She is a middle-level manager of the company, and her husband is a doctor in an orthopedic hospital. To others, her life seems to be quite happy. In her spare time, Tingting often goes in and out of many senior health spas to do some daily skin care, which costs several thousand yuan each time. She often takes her daughter Xiao Rong to the shopping malls to choose brand-name clothes that have just been listed. The shopping malls are all boutique stores located in high-end areas.
Therefore, under the influence of her mother, Xiaorong also became a small shopaholic. Her schoolbag, pencil case and eraser are all imported from abroad, and the price is very expensive. Once, in order to get a lovely bear eraser, she even threw away the old eraser and bought a new one in the name of losing it. One day, Tingting made a table of her monthly expenses. She was surprised to find that Xiaorong's consumption amount was almost the same as hers.
When Tingting told me about her daughter's consumption behavior, I pointed out directly that Xiaorong had become so extravagant because of her influence. After listening to my explanation, Tingting decided to change herself, no longer advocating famous brands, and even went to a health SPA once a year, and began to read books on financial education, hoping to correct Xiaorong's incorrect consumption habits.
In fact, everyone is making progress with limited resources. The reason why Tingting's daughter Xiao Rong is so extravagant is because Tingting didn't set an upper limit for her children's pocket money and didn't teach them how to exchange limited money for what they want, which led Xiao Rong to think that life is about constantly consuming and updating products.
However, consumption habits, like all schoolwork, need constant practice to learn the consumption skills needed in life. In view of this, parents who love their children should never think that a sound sense of values and responsibility will automatically appear on their children with pocket money. Parents must make a lot of preparations in advance and think about their children's possible rebound and doubts, so as to maximize the role of pocket money and smoothly cultivate their children's correct consumption habits and ability to take responsibility.
In daily life, almost every decision we make is related to money. If children grow up, they will find the importance of financial management. At this time, parents will teach financial management, and habits are usually formed and it is difficult to change. Therefore, parents should cultivate their children's correct consumption habits from an early age, and giving their children pocket money is the best start of financial education.
Establish the concept of opportunity cost
The author mentioned the concept of opportunity cost earlier. Opportunity cost refers to the abandoned choice with the highest value, also known as "replacement cost", that is, the so-called "gain will lose". Generally speaking, the opportunity cost will not change when the value of the abandoned option or the preference of the selector changes. Therefore, when making a choice, we should choose the option with the lowest opportunity cost, usually on the principle that the more you lose, the smarter you are.
When making choices in daily life, simple things may only need to be decided once. More often, selection is a series of processes. That is to say, after the first decision, a series of choices will follow. If these series of choices are connected, they will change according to different situations.
For example, if you want to go shopping with your family on holidays, you must first discuss the content, time, place and transportation with your family. These choices are all related to the opportunity cost.
In fact, there are many cases related to opportunity cost, whether it is consumption or investment and financial management, almost all of them are related to choice. For example, Mei Mei wants to wear the new clothes she bought yesterday to the company, but it's raining today, so she begins to choose whether to drive or take the bus to work. The advantage of driving is that you won't get wet because of the rain, but you need to pay for gas and parking. However, it's only 30 yuan by bus, but you have to take the risk that your new clothes may get wet by the rain. Finally, Meimei chose to drive to work. Although some money was spent, the new clothes were bright and intact, and they were praised by colleagues, which made her feel good all day.
From the above example, people will not only consider the actual money expenditure when choosing. Although the related cost of the fare is more than 30 yuan, it can get a good mood. This is the "psychological value" that the author often mentions with children, that is, the "opportunity cost".
It can be seen that letting children understand the concept of opportunity cost is helpful to establish their correct values. Because children who know the opportunity cost will infer and calculate the worst or possible situation every time they make a decision, and they will also be responsible for the decision they have calculated, so they are unlikely to be disappointed or regret in the future, and they can calmly face and deal with emergencies.
Take advantage of the opportunity cost in life
The author believes that the flexible use of the concept of opportunity cost in life is not only the key factor to cultivate children's prudent decision-making, but also enables children to develop the habit of considering opportunity cost in everything.
I will take pocket money as an opportunity to train my children to think. When they get or spend a sum of money, they must think twice. I will let them choose all the opportunities for their children to make decisions, and when they choose one, I will remind them again that there is another choice.
For example, for dinner, there are shrimp fried rice that children like and mixed fried noodles that they have never eaten. If they choose mixed fried noodles that they haven't eaten today, I will say to them while holding shrimp fried rice: "The shrimp in shrimp fried rice today looks so fresh and smells so good." When they saw my expression, sometimes they insisted on trying early, and sometimes they chose their favorite fried rice with shrimp. I will carry out opportunity education according to the situation at that time.
At first, my son hesitated whether to choose Jianguo Middle School or the middle school attached to Normal University, where the school spirit was relatively free. I asked him to list the attractions and shortcomings of the two schools. Even if I am an alumnus of Jianzhong, I will not interfere with his choice, hoping to let him decide the school he wants to go to. Finally, my son was attracted by the open school spirit of the middle school attached to Normal University and chose to attend the middle school attached to Normal University.
Every time a child decides, I won't comment on their choice, because it is difficult to calculate the value lost and gained every time, and each option has different psychological value to the child. I just hope that before making a choice, they must think about all the pros and cons, and try to think about it for one more minute. When deciding their favorite option, they will think of another decision that they have no choice.
Opportunity cost training in life usually has nothing to do with money. I hope to educate children to have the ability to make their own choices and be responsible for their own decisions, and at the same time, don't let them have the opportunity to regret.
Understanding commodity prices through relative value
Generally speaking, children who have not received financial education have a poor concept of money and cannot understand the differences between 10 yuan, 100 yuan and 1000 yuan. Therefore, explaining the price to children should be explained by relative value. Parents should first convert the goods their children want into things that their children know and understand through price conversion. For example, both my babies like to eat cola nuts. So from small to large, whenever babies see the goods they want to buy, I will convert the price into several packets of cola nuts. No, they also know which things are too expensive and which goods are equivalent to cola nuts.
At first, children may not understand the price of goods. Gradually, they will know more about the price and function of money from the experience of conversion again and again. In the future, when parents want to describe the level of a certain consumption, they can explain the price and value of goods in a similar way. Children will be able to judge the price of goods by themselves and then decide whether to buy them.
Maintain interpersonal relationships without money.
Xiaoxing is my cram school student. Every time he comes to the cram school early, I don't know whether he comes to the cram school after dinner or just eats the food in the convenience store, so I ask him my confusion. I didn't expect Xiaoxing to say, "I have to save money to eat before I can buy points to play online games." I looked at his dark circles and knew Xiaoxing must be an online game fan.
He believes that interpersonal relationships need to rely on online games, so he must save money to buy points in order to have a conversation with his classmates. He mistakenly believes that interpersonal relationships are based on money. I tried to change Xiaoxing's mind and persuade him to play less online games and engage in general leisure activities. Moreover, I told him that interpersonal relationships can't be measured by money. Finally, Xiaoxing listened to my words and never indulged in online games again.