No sé si es que mis hijos sean raros, pero desde pequeños siempre han querido tener su dinero propio, y aunque todas sus necesidades básicas las hemos podido cubrir, en ellos está esa necesidad de sentir que tienen la potestad de comprar lo que les plazca en cualquier momento, por lo que siempre me decían: "mamá, quiero tener dinero".
Desde pequeñitos, me han visto a mi (y a su padre) trabajar a diario, y creo que eso ha sembrado en ellos, valores de responsabilidad y esfuerzos para lograr las metas. Por ejemplo, mi hijo mayor vivió todo el proceso de ahorro ( y maromas) que hicimos para comprar nuestra casa propia.
Sin embargo, ante mi negativa de comprarle cosas que yo sentía que no necesitaba, y su insistencia en tener dinero, aproveché la oportunidad de hablarle sobre finanzas. Tenía entonces 5 años y lo resumí en que el dinero no viene solo, hay que hacer algo o vender algo para poderlo obtener.
Luego de pensarlo unos días, me dijo que a su edad nadie le daría empleo, entonces hablamos de emprendimiento, pero tampoco caló mucho la idea en su cabecita.
Así que al final lo que propuse fue darle un empleo yo, por el cual devengaría un sueldo semanal y aceptó. El reto fue entonces en asignarle un trabajo que no fuera algo que por cuestiones de responsabilidad básica debía hacer sin cobrar. Ordenar sus juguetes, cepillarse los dientes, hacer la cama, no eran opción.
Cuando ya su desespero por ser un "desempleado sin dinero" estaba al máximo, se me ocurre decirle que necesitamos alguien que abriera y cerrara el portón del garage al momento de salir o de regresar con el auto. No era algo complicado y así obtuvo su primer empleo.
Los primeros días estuvo feliz, y al finalizar la semana obtuvo su pago, cosa que lo emocionó mucho más. Pero pasadas tres semanas, el ánimo se esfumó y renunció.
Luego de gastarse su dinero en golosinas, vio que era necesario trabajar para tener ingresos permanentes y pues volvió a trabajar. Ni se imaginan su cara, cuando en diciembre le di también aguinaldos!
Todo esto fue un aprendizaje enorme para él y ahora es un jovencito que se maneja muy bien con sus finanzas.
Con el segundo hijo fue igual la experiencia. También quería dinero, pues veía que su hermano siendo niño manejaba billetes. Imagino que la idea en su cabecita era que todos tenían y pues a él también le tocaba su parte.
En su caso, no tenía algún empleo que ofrecerle, por lo que a manera de juego inició un emprendimiento y era irse conmigo y proponerle a mi supervisora que le diera algo para hacer, a cambio de una golosina. (Me salió negociante el muchacho!)
Lo hace de manera esporádica, pero a mí me ha servido para hacerle entender el valor del trabajo y a no esperar que las cosas solo pasen, pues está en cada uno poner el empeño para hacer que sucedan, no solo con el tema financiero sino con la vida en general.
Ahora ya no me dicen que quieren dinero, sino más bien se plantean qué deben hacer para lograr algo de liquidez monetaria.
Y ustedes cómo manejan el tema del dinero con sus niños? Los leo!
I don't know if my children are weird, but since they were little they have always wanted to have their own money, and although we have been able to cover all their basic needs, they have this need to feel that they have the power to buy whatever they want at any time, so they always told me: “Mom, I want to have money”.
Since they were little, they have seen me (and their father) work every day, and I believe that this has instilled in them the values of responsibility and effort to achieve their goals. For example, my eldest son lived through the whole process of saving (and the hard work) that we did to buy our own house.
However, when I refused to buy him things that I felt he didn't need, and his insistence on having money, I took the opportunity to talk to him about finances. He was 5 years old at the time and I summed it up by saying that money doesn't come by itself, you have to do something or sell something in order to get it.
After thinking about it for a few days, he told me that at his age nobody would give him a job, so we talked about entrepreneurship, but the idea didn't really sink into his little head either.
So in the end what I proposed was to give him a job myself, for which he would earn a weekly salary and he accepted. The challenge was then to assign him a job that was not something that for basic responsibility reasons he had to do without pay. Tidying up his toys, brushing his teeth, making his bed, were not options.
When his desperation for being “unemployed with no money” was at its peak, it occurred to me to tell him that we needed someone to open and close the garage door when leaving or returning with the car. It wasn't complicated and that's how he got his first job.
He was happy for the first few days, and at the end of the week he got his pay, which made him even more excited. But after three weeks, the mood faded and he quit.
After spending his money on candy, he realized that it was necessary to work in order to have a permanent income, so he went back to work. You can't even imagine his face when I gave him a Christmas bonus in December!
All this was a huge learning experience for him and now he is a young man who manages his finances very well.
The second son had the same experience. He also wanted money, because he saw his brother handling bills as a child. I imagine that the idea in his head was that everyone had money and he also had his share.
In his case, I had no job to offer him, so as a game he started an enterprise and that was to go with me and propose to my supervisor to give him something to do, in exchange for a candy. (The boy was a businessman!).
He does it sporadically, but it has helped me to make him understand the value of work and not to wait for things to just happen, because it is up to each one of us to make them happen, not only with the financial issue but with life in general.
Now they don't tell me that they want money, but rather they think about what they need to do to get some cash.
And how do you handle the subject of money with your children? I read you!
Foto/Photo by: @mamaemigrante
Edición/Edited by @mamaemigrante using canva
Translated and formatted with Hive Translator by @noakmilo.
