The other day, my eldest daughter and I went to the bank prior to walking through our downtown farmer’s market. My eldest daughter is marching on the way to eighteen-years-old I’ll have you know, but after making my deposit and withdrawal, I handed her the stack of bills to count what we had out of pure habit. She chuckled and confessed she’d always loved the “verifying” job and we got to reminiscing about the easy and stealthy parental ways I taught my kids about handling money, making change, and counting…
When my kids were younger, every time we’d go to the bank, someone would get the job of “verifying”—counting up the money to make sure that the teller had given me the amount I’d requested. When they got a little older, someone else would get to look over the deposit slip or receipt to make sure there weren’t any errors. My daughter reminded that I used to also give someone the job of counting the money in my wallet before we went on a shopping trip to the grocery store so everyone would know how much money we had to spend. This worked for us since I do my grocery shopping with cash. I don’t think my kids realized until they were older that were learning all sorts of math and money lessons as I simply included them in our every day shopping and banking.
Now, of course, they have bank accounts of their own and they can be trusted to make trips to the grocery store on their own. This has brought on even more life lessons about budgeting and making purchasing decisions—but as they were growing up, they learned the basics just by being included when we were out buying groceries, gas, and making bank deposits.
See Also: Encouraging Kids to Think for Themselves
Problem-Solving Through Writing
Promoting and Encouraging Curiosity