Loring Ward Helps Parents Teach Kids About Money

August 03, 2012 at 09:02 AM
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Teaching little ones about money can be difficult for even the most patient adults. There are hundreds of things more interesting to a kid than interest rates or 401(k)s, but since when do kids know what's good for them? Parents and advisors who don't know how to introduce important financial concepts to children can benefit from several online resources.

Loring Ward Financial, a San Jose, Calif.-based RIA, published a guide on July 26 to help advisors show parents how to educate their young children about money.

The 20-page guide, "Parents Guide to Kids & Money: Tips for Helping Your Children Get Off to a Great Financial Start," is aimed at parents or grandparents of kids ages 4 to 13. It outlines a framework for managing money that breaks down the way money can be used into four parts: GISS (Give, Invest, Save, Spend). Each category helps parents talk about immediate or abstract concepts with their kids.

"One of the biggest challenges for advisors is how to connect multigenerationally with clients and their families," William Chettle, chief marketing officer for Loring Ward, said in a statement. "While the guide is designed primarily as an educational tool, it also helps enable advisors to connect across generations. And it shows that an advisor takes a more comprehensive, holistic approach to wealth, instead of only focusing on investments." 

The Alliance for Investor Education has also offered resources for educating children about financial matters, this time reaching out to teachers. The Alliance compiled a list of online resources dedicated to kids from a variety of sources, including the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), the SEC, SIFMA and the Federal Reserve Board.

  1. How to Make Personal Finance "Connect" With Young Adults. The American Association of Individual Investors published an article by Paula Hogan, founder of Hogan Financial Management, that provides parents with a broad introduction to financial topics parents should talk over with their children.
  2. Generation Money. Channel One News, a television news network dedicated to teens, offers a website with information about getting a job, saving for college or buying a car. It's sponsored by the FINRA Investor Education Foundation and the Consumer Federation of America.
  3. Live "Stock" Adventure. North American Securities Administrators Association offers a game for middle-schoolers that can be played with worksheets downloaded from the website and a standard deck of playing cards.
  4. High School Financial Planning Program. The National Endowment for Financial Education designed an in-school program to teach students to create personalized financial plan.
  5. Saving and Investing for Students. The Securities and Exchange Commission's publication for students introduces older kids to financial planning and saving.
  6. Choose to Save. Choose to Save is part of the Employee Benefit Research Institute's education and research fund, and features tips for talking to kids as young as preschoolers to teenagers. The site also illustrates examples of opportunities for opening a conversation about money.
  7. The Stock Market Game. The SIFMA Foundation, an affiliate of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, developed the Stock Market Game program in 1977 to teach students subjects like math, business education, economics and social studies. Students invest a hypothetical $100,000 in an online portfolio.
  8. Teach Investing. This website from the Investor Protection Trust offers articles, videos and Power Point presentations for adults and educators. The materials are designed for high school students or older.
  9. Teaching Your Teen About Money – The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants provides suggestions for parents to guide their children through getting a job to earn income, budgeting, saving and using credit wisely.
  10. Federal Reserve Kids Page. The Federal Reserve Board offers a fact sheet and quiz that walks kids through what the Federal Reserve is and what it does. It also answers questions about inflation and interest rates. (Editor's note: This page has gone offline, but the Fed has a number of games and simulations for kids of vaying ages.)
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