I have seen some Really Wealthy people and some Reasonably Rich people. The way some of them bring up their children is awesome and some of them hurt their kids too much.

1. I think kids should be ENCOURAGED to earn their OWN MONEY over which they have full CONTROL: When a kid earns his or her own money it is when the kid appreciates the value of the Rupee. Not when he/she does a social service stint with a 5* NGO. Please no Velvet gloves. Let him / her work as a life insurance salesman or a kid selling impossible to sell books, or in a book shop, or wherever. At the end of 30 days of slogging he/she gets Rs. 3500, suddenly, the money looks respectable.

Now do NOT go in your Capri to drop and bring him home. Let him learn how a person earning Rs. 3500 lives.

2. Push him out of the nice sugar coated, fully protected cocoon: One parent said ‘Oh he goes through a lot – when we travel abroad for a vacation, my husband insists that our kids travel Economy, not first class. These babies are 21 and 17 year old boys. Gimme a break guys. This is not hardship. Hardship is when you give your kid a Eurail Pass and ask him to tour Europe on a budget (so that he sleeps in the train and uses the bathrooms in the Railway stations). Or ask him to go ALONE on a tour of India on a real tight budget – second class, railway rest rooms, hostel dorms to stay – THAT is better.

3. Let him work under somebody else and earn money: Do not put him in a friend’s place. Put him in a friend’s friend’s friend’s place. The distance will ensure that he/she does not get any special privilege at the work place. Let him learn to negotiate with his reporting boss for his ‘want to go early’ and ‘can I come late’ kinda requests. THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN IN YOUR OWN OFFICE. Let him work in a field not connected to you. If you are in the Electrical business, let him work in a book shop or in an auto sales room. Or as a sales assistant to a big Architect. Hide his identity completely. No ‘home’ car dropping off. Let nobody know that he is rich n spoilt…..

The ‘unspoiling’ done by the first job is a MUST – especially if you have spoilt him silly.

  1. I regularly teach my 11 year old daughter about money, savings & investments. Had shown some cartoons and videos that talks about best way to deal with the money.

    Call it overdose, she now hates the moment I start to talk about money. Curious to know the effectiveness of my teachings, recently we gave good amount of pocket money for school picnic although there was no requirement to send any money. She came empty handed spending all the amount. We have seen the same trend on similar such occasions.

    Alas, I need to devise new tools/methods to teach the importance of money value.

  2. Krish

    the MOST important thing to teach a kid is not money but patience and restraint. If your daughter likes – say Cadbury Milk Chocolate, but her a big slab. 8 x 4 = 32 pieces in that slab.

    Force her to eat one piece a day. Son on any day u know how much should be left. NO COMPROMISES, BUT yes postponing is ok. So she can skip one day and have 2 the next day, BUT CANNOT EAT in advance. Will work only if she likes chocolate 🙂 or try it with some biscuit…ONE A DAY…….

  3. As I’ve wizened over the years, I’ve learnt the following:
    1. Knowledge cannot just be given by the teacher, it has to be yearned for by the student.
    2. What you get easily or with less effort, you don’t treasure as much. And that includes knowledge. Your shouting thousand times will not get an idea into someone’s head, as much as he/she figures out something for him/herself.
    3. Invoke curiosity in the bright student, and he/she will learn faster and better. Create an environment of discovery rather than postulating or lecturing.
    4. Allow kids to rebel, they are so by nature. Tell them to NOT DO something actually good for them by giving flimsy reasons, and they’ll DO exactly that.
    5. Experimenting with new ideas usually yields better ways of doing even the same old things.
    6. Holding tightly to what you have will prevent you from getting your hands on things better than what you do have.
    7. Only the paranoid survive, and thrive. Others eventually fall by the wayside.

  4. There is an old tamil saying
    ” aathila potta kuda Alanthu podu ” ( Even if you are putting in river, measure it). So even they are rich, they should know the value of money. Well explained Subra ji….
    But Indian Railway bathrooms – very horrible…

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