What are you teaching your children?

I have two precious young sons – one is 4 years old and the other 18 months. Boys are a dad’s pride and joy.

Since embarking on the road to financial freedom, I have instinctively known that it is my responsibility (and my wife of course) to teach our children about financial freedom. In most cases, it is virgin territory because we have to teach them differently to what we have been taught by our parents.

Because my parents were born as part of the baby boomer generation – they taught me the standard boring approach that people taught their kids in the 70’s and 80’s while growing up in South Africa (and probably the same approach was taught in the area where you grew up).

Their teachings can be summarized as advising us to: “Make sure you save money. Do your part during school and study hard so your grades can be good. Then go to college / university and study to get a degree / diploma so that you can get a good solid job that has good medical insurance benefits and good pension plans.”

That was basically the extent of their advice on money….

While pursuing financial freedom, I have been reading books on the topic and listening to audio books and I also actively watch YouTube and other videos on the subject. I do this diligently, daily and over the years I can say that I have successfully transformed my thinking about money and finance away from what my mom and dad taught me – to what I have learnt from experts in the field of money, business, investing etc.

My eldest son already understands that money is exchanging hands in return for a service / product being provided. My son now needs to understand that working at a job will not make you rich. I will also teach him that working hard for money and job security will also not make you rich. It is your mind and how you think about money that makes you rich.

Often times having a “rich mentality” is not only a choice – you also have to actively work at it, actively nurture your “rich mentality”. Focus on not having a scarcity view on life – forbid yourself to say anything like: “There is not enough money”, “I cannot afford it” and such crazy statements.

Who told us all that rubbish?

The world is filled with abundance.

I will teach by boys and help them nurture their “rich mentality” so that they can realise there is a lot of money going around. The trick it to get “plugged in” to sources of money. I will point out to them that regardless of where the world economy is going, there are still buildings being built, there are still people driving luxury cars, there are still people going on overseas holidays.

How do they get it done?

They are using their Financial IQ.

I can guarantee that such people do not have a ‘scarcity mentality’.

I will assist my boys to have the right mentality, encourage them to focus on learning and reading about the world of finance so that they never get trapped in that dark, confined and lonely space that a poor mentality brings.

So if you have children, I encourage you to increase your own Financial IQ constantly – while at the same time helping your children to do the same. Start off by making sure the foundation is solid by ensuring they develop a rich mindset.