The Money Fit Show · Season 1, Episode 28
Becoming Your Child’s Financial Teacher
Parents are often a child's first and most consistent financial teachers, whether they intend to be or not. Eric Yard returns to The Money Fit Show to discuss saving, budgeting, assets, liabilities, emergency funds, investing concepts, and ways parents can help children develop a healthier relationship with money.
Helping children build a practical relationship with money
Play Season 1, Episode 28 directly through Spotify without leaving Money Fit.
Children learn about money from what parents teach and what parents do
Eric Yard and Todd Christensen discuss the influence parents can have on a child's developing relationship with money. Children hear financial conversations, watch purchases being made, notice whether saving is discussed, and observe how adults respond when money becomes stressful.
That makes financial education more than explaining definitions. Parents can give children opportunities to save toward goals, build simple budgets, read financial books together, talk about the difference between things that create value and things that cost money, and gradually introduce more complicated ideas as children mature.
Eric also encourages families to make those lessons enjoyable. Financial education does not have to begin with fear, scarcity, or warnings about mistakes. It can start with choices, goals, curiosity, and giving children room to practice.
Topics covered in this episode
- Eric's view of investing in assets and teaching children that some financial choices can help build future value or income.
- Introducing older children to the concepts of assets and liabilities in language they can understand.
- The episode's discussion of Eric's suggested relationship between assets and liabilities as one way to think about household financial choices.
- Using simple examples, such as a vending or candy machine, to show how the same transaction can look different from the owner's and customer's perspectives.
- Making lessons about saving, budgeting, and investing engaging rather than treating financial education as punishment or another chore.
- Why emergency savings remained important during the uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to matter when unexpected expenses occur.
- Using books and shared reading as tools for starting financial conversations with children.
- Treating money as a tool for making choices and pursuing goals rather than allowing every financial decision to become emotionally charged.
- The influence parents can have on the beliefs and habits children develop around earning, spending, saving, and financial security.
- Introducing practical budgeting skills before children reach the years when they begin making larger independent financial decisions.
Teach the decision, not just the definition
A child does not need to memorize a technical definition of an asset or liability to begin thinking about how money choices work. Ask simple questions: What will this cost? What will it help us do? Will it require more money later? Are we giving up something else to buy it? Those conversations help children practice the thinking behind financial decisions.
Eric Yard
Eric Yard returned to The Money Fit Show after his earlier Season 1 conversation about raising financially capable children. He founded and hosted Raising Financial Freedom, a podcast focused on helping parents teach their children about money and financial independence.
In this episode, Eric and Todd focus on the parent's role as an everyday teacher and on ways families can introduce financial ideas through activities, conversations, reading, saving, budgeting, and age-appropriate discussions about investing.
