I’ve never really known how to teach a child about delayed gratification. I guess we have tried to teach Ryan about this in a subconscious manner where we ask of him to save or postpone something for later.
But I do not expect a child of 2 years to naturally save something for the future if they can do or have it now. Children are mostly about instant gratification. Why wait to watch a Barney episode when you can do it now? Why wait to play with a favourite toy when you can play it now, right?
However, it does seem like whatever we’ve imparted to Ryan seems to have worked on him building up a natural delayed gratification habit. On Sunday I gave Ryan his first taste of a Crispy chocolate bar. He loves chocolates and he loved that small bar of Crispy too. I promised that I’ll let him have another bar the next day because I limit his candy intake in a day.
Came Monday this busy mummy had forgotten about the promised Crispy and my guess is that Ryan forgot too. Last night when I was rummaging through my handbag, I found that little Crispy bar and I immediately went to give it to him. He lit up at the sight of it and he was so happy. I tore it open for him to sink his little teeth in and he was happily enjoying it.
Then when he was halfway through the bar, he handed his half eaten chocolate to grandma and said “Keep this, tomorrow bring to Aunty’s house to eat”. Both grandma and I melted at that gesture. He loved that chocolate so much but he was willing to stop eating and keep the other half for the next day, without being asked to!
So when I heard that, I told him to eat it all up to his heart’s content. I promised to buy him some more so that he can eat them again. Only upon hearing this did he take his half eaten candy back from his grandmother and continued to happily chomp it down.
I’m so proud of my little 2-year old. If he understands the concept of delayed gratification now, I think it will be quite a breeze to start him young on financial education. After all, part of being smart in managing one’s finances involves delayed gratification.
In fact, we have already started him on the habit of saving by giving him coins on a daily basis. He enjoys dropping the coins into his huge piggy bank. It helps that it’s a transparent container and he gets to watch as the coins fill up. Now it’s full to the brim (thanks to grandma!) and we’re ready to go to the bank.
By the way, if you ask Ryan what he should do with his money, he will say “Put in the bank”. Anyone who gives him an ang pow, he would hand it over to me and ask me to keep it away in the bank. He learned this when he turned 1 year old. Now that’s my boy!
So you see, it’s never too early to start teaching your children financial education and start to cultivate a good financial blueprint for them. I have every determination to start Ryan off in the right track when it comes to money after reading a book that changed me. If you would like to know more about the book, you can read my review on Secrets of The Millionaire Mind.
Have you started your kids on financial education? Want to share on how we can best train them from young to have good money habits?
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I have been ‘wow-ing!!!’ to friends about him too. Mummy is definitely on the right track teaching him the great values in life.
Penny,
I loved this post. Congrats on just thinking about delayed gratification for such a young child. You likely know about it already, but I thought you might find this link to a book for which I just wrote a chapter pretty interesting. The book is called Allowance Secrets and I have a full-page excerpt about Delayed Gratification and the famous Walter Mischel “Marshmallow Study.” The book gives various perspectives on allowance and at some point down the road, you’ll be considering giving one for Ryan, http://allowancesecrets.com/.
-John
Thanks for sharing the site, John. Will check it out, sounds interesting.