Who doesn’t want their kids to be successful in life? My parents failed to teach me about money, resulting in financial mismanagement in my early adulthood. This is why it’s very important to teach your kids about finance, life and business at an early age.
Kids learn by example. Kids learn by example. Kids learn by example.
Yes, modern public schools can be quite bad, but if your kids SEES you being a maverick, a person not swayed by the herd, etc., and they have the most rudimentary intelligence, they will probably be able to discern in school what’s useful, and what’s bullshit.
So this means two things:
a. Be the kind of person you want your kids to be.
b. Expose them to as much of your life as you can (ie. Hang out with your kids!)
Here are some of the ways you can assist your kids in an early age:
1) Home school – Public school is designed to create employees. They also lower self-esteem by focusing on the things students don’t know, don’t care to learn, and therefore cannot really focus. Think about it – you have never really learned something unless you wanted to. And there is absolutely no reason they should be in classrooms 7-8 hours per day. 2 hours per day is plenty. I remember I got into a fight in HS once and was remanded to in-school suspension for 3 days. They brought all my work in the morning and I had it done in two hours. After that I was quite angry they made me sit in school for 7 hours every day.
2) Teach them how to be interested in things – With the free time they are not in school, there is a lot of time to help them actually learn how to be interested. The biggest problem I see with people is they have no actual desires. They have just learned to be complacent and don’t like to learn a variety of things. Since they are only doing “school” two hours per day there is plenty of time for piano, martial arts, language, creative arts, models, machines, putting kits together etc…Don’t forget that until 150 years ago wealthy kids were done with school by 16 and were expected to speak multiple languages along with musical instruments in addition to all the other things one must learn to be a leader in society.
3) Live the good life – Show them what money buys. Since they aren’t in school, you have full control over your time with them. You can take trips. Travel to other places. Teach them their history lesson at the beach. Go see the places and things they are learning about. Don’t just talk about government, show them. Don’t just talk about the civil war, visit a battleground. Do these things in conjunction with family fun and time spent together. Raise their self-esteem by showing them they are valuable and your time with them is valuable.
4) Business finance. Everyone has money all wrong – The corporations and Wall Street say “save 10% of your earnings for retirement” and it totally screws up the way people think about money. If you own a business, you don’t just get your whole revenue and save 10%. In reality, you net 10-30% depending on how you are set up. When people send my kid money – he gets 30% of it. The rest goes away to be “reinvested” later because that is how a free person actually lives. Eventually he will have some real money in there and I can help him play with it. But he needs to know – take the 30% for fun – the rest is freedom. By the time he is 20 I hope I have taught him how to be financially free. Right from the start. It’s capitalism – you keep as much money as possible working for you or in cash waiting for an opportunity.
5) Let them see your deals – When you have an investment opportunity like equipment, real estate, or buying an undervalued asset, let them see how it works.
6) Teach them how to work – Show them that you work a lot sometimes and that you have a reward in a job well-done. Your lifestyle and happiness flow from a satisfying career. When you are home, work with them. Teach them how to get it all done and hold them to a very high standard. Clean the garage with excellence. Take out the trash with excellence. Make your bed in the morning and be sure they do too. Teach them that the work isn’t done until it is done.
7) The power of money to make or break you – Show them plenty of people who screwed it up. Don’t shield them from the poor side of town. I don’t really mean volunteering (although that might be a good thing) since lots of the people in need of volunteer services are mentally ill or have fallen upon exceptionally hard times. I mean, show them how poor people live. People who are poor in their mindset. The people who have barely enough and spend the rest drinking, gambling, and hanging out. I grew up around these kind of people and they were my inspiration for who I would never be.
8) Delayed gratification – Studies have tracked children who could resist eating 1 cookie now so they could have 2 cookies in a few minutes. The children who delayed gratification the longest grew up to be the most successful. Don’t react to everything your kid wants. Don’t just give them everything. Make them learn to wait for things. Make them learn to be patient. Make them figure out how to buy what they want.
9) Self esteem – Perhaps most important are the first 7 years. Make sure they know you give a damn and be kind to them. Kindness is perhaps the biggest builder of self-confidence. Kids see parents as Gods almost. And when the Gods punish you, your only response is to say “I deserve it” – Adam never says “God is wrong.” When parents are unkind to children, the children think “I deserve that anger” and it lowers their self-image. It kills that spark inside. And the more you punish kids, the more that flame goes out. It might take them decades undo the damage. So focus on the things they do well. Try not to focus on the “bad” things too much even though that is difficult. What we look for in life we will get more of. So teach them how to focus on the good by doing that yourself with them.
For me these are the top. It all starts with homeschooling. When you put them in public school, you really are giving up so much. You are giving up control of what they learn. You are giving up a MASSIVE amount of time with them. You are giving up control over when you take vacations. You are giving up on their time to see you in action. Not everyone can do it but it is a major part of my plan. Nothing wrong with good teachers but lets face it, schools are teaching some hairbrained things now and some of the other kids are quite crazy. The school system has turned into daycare for stressed out parents. Stressed out parents have stressed out kids. No thanks. I am making other choices and planning accordingly. I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks about it.