The 3–Legged Stool of Financial Literacy
January 28th, 2012 - Category: Financial Literacy
If you have been involved with My Job Chart for a while, then you have come to appreciate our three main areas of focus: “saving, sharing and spending.” I call it a 3-legged stool.
Just for a moment, try to picture a 3-legged stool in your mind. It generally has a flat round surface from which extend three legs, all the same length and all the same distance apart from each other. When properly built, a 3-legged stool works very well. It is stable, handy and dependable.
However, if one of the legs is missing or even broken, the stool is no longer able to support the weight of someone using it to sit on. The integrity and usefulness of the stool is compromised. It’s interesting to note that the stability of the stool is also diminished if the lengths of the legs vary. Depending on how uneven they are, the stool may cease to be functional even though all three legs exist. The same is true in helping our kids learn about money and chores. It is not only important to teach our kids how to earn points (which can be redeemed for money, privileges, time with a parent, etc.) but it is equally important that we teach them how to handle what they have earned in terms of balanced and reasonable use of “saving, sharing and spending.”
The 3 legs supporting the stool of financial literacy are also “saving, sharing and spending.” These three “S” words are the Super Heroes of prosperity. When they are all in place and balanced, the stool is stable and functional. They are the pillars needed for a child to understand and experience financial literacy first hand.
Now, imagine a properly balanced 3-legged stool that has 3 support pieces of equal size placed in between the legs of the stool. Adding these 3 supports ensures long and successful use of the stool. I’d like to suggest that the supports consist of parents, training and experience, the very results of utilizing the 3-legged stool of financial literacy.
If parents are able to teach their kids about the proper use of money, focusing on “saving, sharing and spending,” and then allow them to experience the positive results of their efforts first-hand, the parent and child will have built a stool of financial literacy that will serve each of them well all of the days of their lives.
You will find many of the tools needed to teach these things to your children as you participate in our free, user-friendly, online chore chart and reward system at My Job Chart. Join the thousands of other parent who are teaching and motivating their kids to Save, Share and Spend responsibly.
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