How do you teach your kids to be investors?

One of the most enduring gifts you can give is to teach your kids what you know about investing. My 7 year old loves playing monopoly, but I'm sure there is so much more I can teach them about investing.

How (or what) do you teach your kids to be good investors?

 

My daughter is only 5 years old so I don't think I can teach her much. However, when I was playing junior monopoly with her, I showed her buying land and developing properties can make lots of money and win the game. Especially when you can buy two pieces of land next to each other.

 

My 10 and 12 year old have shares. Took their savings from working for me over the last few years. Have an excel spreadsheet setup so they track it everyso often

 

Can 7 and 9 year olds have shares? If so, how can I do it? The bank's interest isn't cutting it.

 

Mine is 4. We have another IP under construction. I take her there every few days to check progress. She knows people are going to pay daddy to live there. If the people pay daddy more than daddy has to pay the bank, that's less he has to go to work. If he does that again enough times one day he can choose to go to work. Or not. Weird father daughter time. But she loves it. Full of questions. Loves display villages too.

 

I do this too. Drive the kids around to check on progress of our developments. I explain that it's like monopoly, just like how you land on someone else's house and have to pay rent.

 

Great. I'm keen to do this too. Do they do their own research and make trading decisions themselves?

 

Purely by osmosis at this stage as my daughter is only 6.
I've seen her playing Monopoly at after school care when picking her up, so that's something.
She's a good saver and not wanting to spend her money at all, so that's a good start.
I really think the lessons and attitude will just come naturally as we spend time together while she grows up.

 

It ultimately comes down to saving. Attain education to provide a good income and than have a mindset, which can realise the benefits of delayed gratification and compounding interest.

 

I read a really interesting article about the 'Polgar sisters'. Their father was a psychologist who wrote a book in the 60's that geniuses are made, not born. He famously put the theory to the test, got married, had 3 children (girls), and they grew up to all be genius chess grandmasters. The theme was early and intensive specialisation in a particular subject.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/László_Polgár

I'm thinking what would be required to turn my kids into genius investors....

 

I teach the ASX Share Market Game (to high schoolers), and because it is a co-curricular activity (like sport), only the interested ones turn up. I've had a girl show up a few times now - and her father is supporting her in setting up to start actual trading (don't worry, I've sent her to resources well beyond a 10 week game!).

Sometimes, it is just a matter of lighting a spark. But, for littlies, a money box, like the ones sold by Money Savvy Kids might do the trick. They are a see-through money box which has 4 chambers, so that they can watch their money grow, and where each section can be labelled - including putting aside funds for'Investment'. This might be a great place to start. (http://www.moneysavvykids.com.au/product.asp?oid=2)

 

It definitely seems that kids can be shaped in their development years to become anything you push them to become.
Doesn't the early and intensive specialisation sacrifice other areas of their lives when growing up?

Apart from basic good life lessons, which many kids would not get from their parent/s, do we really need to mould them to be something they may not want to do?

 

I tried to get our kids (5 & 7) to value money by paying them a dollar for completing certain tasks. They were allowed to buy anything with their money.
We go to BigW once they have about $15.
It is interesting to see them looking at toys and their prices. Often they go "nah... It is not worth my money" and move on.

It takes a while to get them going again once they spent all and start all over again though.

 

Yeah definitely. Those kids sacrifice normality of just being kids, for a dream that their parents set for them to be extraordinary at a specific thing. I see it all the time with kids who practice 3-4 hours a day, every day, on musical instruments.

 

Great topic, @mrdobalina

I'm constantly harping about how young some of the investors on PropertyChat are. How amazing to own IPs starting from a young age! I think it will start to make more tangible sense when I actually purchase my first IP

They have been taught to save up for uni from a young age. 1 is a natural saver, but the other 2 wants to just spend, spend, spend though

Last year my 15yo and 12yo went overseas for school exchange trips. They had to pay 50% of all their costs (approx $3k each), so they could experience what their savings can achieve.

They are both working for their piano teacher now, and earning a bit of $$. Very tempted to tax them...to add to my IP deposit

 

Very cool money box

Can I learn the game from you too Something I've been meaning to do, but it's now on the back burner. Learning about IPs first.

 

@RPI how did you go about setting this up? Definitely a great way to educate the kids.

If you don't mind, could you please share your excel sheet

 

We took them to property inspections and explained to them why we are doing these "chores", asking agents questions and surveying the streets. I think they took away quite a bit because they started thinking of ideas to earn money. 7 and 9, not too young!

 

Tough question. Don't think they should be moulded into an area that they detest. Having said that, there is value to tenacity and resilience required to achieve at a high level.

Life is about balance. My kids practise the piano 1-1.5 hours a day, play soccer, futsal and take part in orchestra at school. It was easier to find the time when they were in primary school. Now that they have more school homework, exams and co curricular at high school, it is harder to put in 1.5 hours daily. Some days they don't touch the piano.

My Yr 11 boy just passed his assoc diploma in music last month. Next year he will perform on the piano for his WACE. Probably end up in music in uni as that is what he enjoys. We didn't have that intention when he started off his piano journey. It was just for fun. Haha.

His younger brothers are not keen to pursue music for their career. We'll see how far they want to go with their piano. Would be good if they go far enough to earn some side income from teaching...to put into their future investments

 

Hi Catalyst.

The ASX website has a lot of educational videos and tutorials, and there is a 'public access' game that runs at the same time as the 'school kids' one runs (and they are run twice per year). Very informative, but the hard part is that the game forces you to trade a minimum number of times, and you can't hold your stocks indefinitely, waiting for them to recover, if they have a slide. But it certainly starts to teach them about researching shares, looking for things like dividends, and indices, the ASX200 etc.

Give it a go!