It’s amazing how much and how fast our children can learn when we share with them real-world examples and case studies.

Personally, I let my children manage a small portion of the family expenses and they’ve done very well with it. I think the key is to give them some responsibility to apply their new-found knowledge.

Graduation is an event that needs to be commemorated no matter what the occasion. Whether it is high school, college, evening class, beauty school or bar tending academy - it is a rite of passage that honors those that have put in a lot of work and are…

One thing that they did do right was encourage me to invest. At age 13 I invested in the Nasdaq 100 ETF- and promptly learned my first big lesson in 2000. Better to lose $300 as a kid than $300k as a retiree, but the key point in all this is that at first my parents matched 50% of my investments, then later matched them dollar-for-dollar. Assuming that I didn’t withdraw the money from the brokerage account, it amounted to a free gift. They terminated this practice sometime around age 17, as the point was learned and with a part time job it was getting expensive for them.

I think another thing you should mention is instilling a fascination with saving, investing, and watching money grow- the power of compounding interest should something that gets hammered home very frequently, even at ages when kids can’t understand it. If you can get them hooked on personal finance, budgeting, and investing as a hobby, you’ve done your job as a parent.