Ready and excited to learn!

From birth, we are a voracious learning center full of curiosity. By age 4 or 5 our brain has quadrupled in size. (Goswami 2008) Yet, the ability for us to learn as we grow is dependent upon our cognitive development. Just as children need to walk before they run, they also need personal, enjoyable experiences with money, like shopping with their parents, to prepare them to understand basic financial concepts like counting money, a skill not typically acquired until age 5.

Discovery Learning Reigns!

Early on, we learn by imitating the actions of our parents. From then on, it’s all about discovery learning. Providing children with abundant experiences within a trusted learning environment prepares them to tackle new problems with confidence and try different strategies to solve their problems. (e.g. Chen & Siegler, 2000) This ability, known as metacognition, is valuable in resolving financial dilemmas or better yet, avoiding them later in life.

Make saving a fun experience!

‘You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink,’ is another way of saying learning is more effective if we’re motivated. Children need to understand the relevancy of a proposed activity to their life or they may rebel feeling it’s not worthwhile. Explaining the relationship between the activity and their situation will also give them confidence they can succeed at a task–at their appropriate cognitive level. For example, you wouldn’t ask a 5 year-old to make change. (Gelman and Merk, 1986)

Cultivate A Strong Relationship

Finally, a parent’s relationship with their young child strongly influences the child’s cognitive ability. Reading to your child, language development activities, responsiveness and warmth of interactions influence positive growth and development as well as the motivation to learn. (eg. Grolnick, 2009; Melhush, 2010)

Learning Behaviors Indicate Readiness

As we explore ‘saving’, we will often refer to the extent to which the following cognitive learning behaviors are necessary and relevant to the skill to be acquired. i.e. receiving an allowance. To have a positive learning experience, we will discuss the necessity for a child:

• To exhibit self-control
• To plan for future events
• To be attentive
• To remember instructions
• To apply learned concepts
• To perceive causal relationships
• To comprehend that skills learned today will be of future benefit

Please share your tips and advice on teaching money management skills with other parents by leaving a comment. All comments are screened for appropriateness. We look forward to hearing from you!