How to Teach Kids to Plan

(Photo credit: Photo by Robert Collins on Unsplash)

Have you heard the story about the village boy who wanted to make a nice hut for his mom?

There once was a boy in a small village. His family was very poor. They lived in a hut toward the outskirts of the village. Everyday the boy would watch his mom work as hard as she could, for hours. She would get paid, but not very much money. Barely enough to eat. Certainly not enough to buy a nicer home for their family.

The boy decided he would get a job, even though he was young. He would save money and he would buy his mom a nicer home.

The boy went to one of the neighbors, a business man, who makes and sells nice pottery at the village market. He asked the man, “Will you teach me? May I work for you, and you teach me how to make this nice pottery?”

The man thought for a while.

“Come back tomorrow morning. We begin tomorrow.” He sent the boy on his way but before he did, the man told the boy what time to arrive and how much money he would pay him.

That night the boy could hardly sleep. He stayed up planning the home he would make his mom. He sketched out a picture of the home. He wrote down measurements and how much would and straw he would need. He knew he would need some tools and supplies to build the home too, so he planned how much money he would need and how long it would take him to save the money.

The boy worked for the man for 6 months. Everyday he would get paid. He’d put his money in a secret place. He counted it, then he recorded how much he had. After 6 months, he had the money to build his mom the home he had planned.

It took him a few weeks to get the supplies, to build the home. He paid two men from the village to help. A month later, he walked his mom through the village to the new house.

“Surprise!” he shouted. “I bought you this!”

His mom cried after being in shock for a few moments. She hugged the boy and told him how proud and amazed she was of him.

Have a plan for your money

For many of us this is something even WE are still working on. A plan for our money. We get paid and then end up having too much month at the end of the money.

Imagine if we could be parents that not only model this for our children yet teach them principles of being good stewards of our money.

Luke 14 says, Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?

On the road of present state, where we currently are in our emotions, our state, our circumstances, onward to our future or ideal state, where we plan to go, we MUST get our children involved. Far too often parents relinquish that control and guidance, proclaiming they no longer have control of their children.

Imagine if we sat down with our children, often and guided them on what comes next with their money. Little junior gets a job, we teach him that we give the first of our fruits to God, the church. Little junior wants to buy a new remote control car. We show little Junior how to budget and save up.

What I love about consideration of our state over goals is that we focus first and foremost on the positive outcomes of the things we are pursuing, but that rather than setting goals on the things we want to buy, to have, places we hope to go and visit, relationships we hope to build, rather we focus on the state in which we hope to experience.

I want to set a goal to be adventurous this month.

I want to set a goal that within 30 days I’ve experienced the joy of spending time with a friend.

This month I want to experience the joy of using my money to buy someone a gift.

This month I want to experience feeling accomplished as I increase my savings account.

The focus of these outcomes is the experience of positive emotion. Rather than focused on the negative past experiences that cause us to desire something different in the future, we are focused on how we hope to experience circumstances.

Let us sit down and set these goals with our children. Let us sit down and talk about where they are in some areas – relationships, prayer, reading their bibles, looking for people in help or in need, finding a sacrifice they can make that month. And with each aim, they get to establish the emotion behind those accomplishments that they are looking to experience.