As a parent, you might feel that there are many lessons more important in life than those that revolve around money. For example, your first instinct is probably to focus on life skills like getting dressed, tying shoes, and brushing teeth. And academic pursuits like reading and counting are also on the schedule before you send kids off to school. But learning to handle money, while not imperative for toddlers, is certainly going to become more important as they age. And if you teach your children about money when they’re young, the lessons will stick with them into adulthood, helping them to become the independent individuals you want them to be. So here are just a few fun toys and resources that could help you through the process.
- Money Savvy Pig. You might not necessarily classify a piggy bank as a toy, but this one is specifically designed not only to help your kids save their cash and coins, but also to teach them the basic principles of budgeting and let them see exactly where their money is going. Unlike the one-slot piggy banks of old, which left kids wondering how much cash they had stashed, the Money Savvy Pig is see through so that kids can watch their savings grow, literally. In addition, each bank comes with four separate, labeled slots: Save, Spend, Donate, and Invest. This will help them learn to budget so that their money can work in a variety of ways. It’s never too soon for kids to start learning about money management, and this is one great tool for teaching them.
- Teaching cash register. Young children will love pushing the buttons on the register and watching the drawer pop out, but as toddlers get older you can start to teach them the numbers on the keypad and help them to differentiate between the play bills and coins in the drawer. This method may be a bit antiquated since most cash businesses now use computer touchscreens, but it’s still a good toy that kids will find both fun and informative.
- Coin magnets. Magnets can provide a fun and easy way for parents to interest kids in letters, numbers, words, and even money. So pick up a pack of magnets that display a variety of coinage and slap them on the fridge or dishwasher at kid-height so that the young ones in your house have an educational diversion while you’re cooking dinner.
- Doughmain.com. This website is chock full of financial tools for the whole family. It can help the adults in your household to organize finances better, but there is also information designed to teach kids about proper money management. There are fun money games provided to help kids of all ages learn to count and sort money, make change, and later on, learn about spending, saving, budgeting, shopping, and even credit cards and credit scores. Many parents fail to educate their children properly when it comes to money, often because they never got a real education themselves in this area. But there are tons of online (and mobile) tools that can help you nowadays, and Doughmain.com is a good place to start.
- Monopoly. This old-school board game may not qualify as one of the best toys in 2013, but it’s a great way for your kids to spend a Saturday afternoon, and learn a bit about handling money in the process. They’ll no doubt have fun with the play money, but at the same time they’ll get a lesson in saving, spending, rent, and so on that will familiarize them with adult concepts.