Financial Habits Parents should Teach Their Children

The fact is the poor are poor because they have too many Poverty Habits and too few Rich Habits. Poor parents teach their children the Poverty Habits and wealthy parents teach their children the Rich Habits. Parents and our schools need to work together to instill good daily success habits as follows:

• Limit T.V., social media and cell phone use to no more than one hour a day.
• Require that children to read one to two educational books a month.
• Require children to aerobically exercise 20 – 30 minutes a day.
• Limit junk food to no more than 300 calories a day.
• Require that children set monthly, annual and 5-year goals.
• Require working age children to work or volunteer at least ten hours a week.
• Require that children save at least 25% of their earnings or gifts they receive.
• Teach children the importance of relationship building by requiring them to call friends, family, teachers, coaches etc. on their birthdays and to send thank you cards for gifts or help they received from anyone.
• Reassure children that mistakes are good not bad. Children need to understand that the very foundation of success in life is built on learning from our mistakes.
• Punish children when they lose their tempers so they understand the importance of controlling this very costly emotion.
• Teach children that seeking financial success in life is good and is a worthwhile goal. Children need to learn what the American Dream is and that it is something to be pursued in life.
• Children need to learn how to manage money. Open up a checking account or savings account for children and force them to use their savings to buy the things they want. They need to learn that they are not entitled to things like cell phones, computers, fashionable clothes, flat screen T.V.s etc.
• Require children to participate in at least two non-sports-related extracurricular activities at school or outside of school.
• Parents and children need to set aside at least an hour a day to talk to one another. Not on Facebook, or on the cell phone, but face to face. The only quality time is quantity time.
• Teach children how to manage their time. They should be required to create daily “to do” lists and these lists need to be monitored by parents. The goal should be to accomplish at least 70% of their tasks on their daily “to do” list.

Here are some statistics from Tom Corley's five-year study on the daily habits that separate the wealthy from the poor?

1. 72% of the wealthy know their credit score vs. 5% of the poor
2. 6% of the wealthy play the lottery vs. 77% of the poor
3. 80% of the wealthy are focused on at least one goal vs. 12% of the poor
4. 62% of the wealthy floss their teeth every day vs. 16% of the poor
5. 21% of the wealthy are overweight by 30 pounds or more vs. 66% of the poor
6. 63% of the wealthy spend less than 1 hour per day on recreational Internet use vs. 26% of the poor
7. 83% of the wealthy attend/attended back to school night for their kids vs. 13% of the poor
8. 29% of the wealthy had one or more children who made the honor roll vs. 4% of the poor
9. 63% of wealthy listen to audio books during their commute vs. 5% of the poor
10. 67% of the wealthy watch 1 hour or less of T.V. per day vs 23% of the poor
11. 9% of the wealthy watch reality T.V. shows vs. 78% of the poor
12. 73% of the wealthy were taught the 80/20 rule vs. 5% of the poor (live off 80% save 20%)
13. 79% of the wealthy network 5 hours or more per month vs. 16% of the poor
14. 8% of the wealthy believe wealth comes from random good luck vs. 79% of the poor
15. 79% of the wealthy believe they are responsible for their financial condition vs. 18% of the poor

Wealthy people do certain things every single day that sets them apart from everyone else in life. Wealthy people have good daily success habits that they learned from their parents. These daily habits are the real reason for the wealth gap in our country and the real reason why the rich get richer. Unless we teach our children good daily success habits, and level the playing field, the rich will continue to get richer and the poor will continue to get poorer.

Source: Here