As a parent, it goes without saying that you want your older children to be successful as they venture out into the world.
In order to help set up the young adults in your life for success, it is important to teach them a number of important lessons and skills. Here are three ways you can help prepare your kid for the future.
Teach them about budgeting
One of the best lessons you can teach your young adult is how and why to create a budget. Explain how budgeting will allow them to create a spending plan for their money — one that lets them be in charge of every dollar that they make, and help ensure that they will have enough money to pay their bills every month. In order to teach them as effectively as possible, ChrisHogan360 suggests speaking to your young adults in their “native language,” which involves all things digital. Rather than busting out paper and pencil to teach about budgeting, download a free app like EveryDollar and go over how the app will help them create and track their first budget in less than 10 minutes. If your young adult has a job, you can use his or her actual income and bills as part of this lesson, so he or she can see how eating out every night and getting pricey coffee drinks may not be such a great idea.
Talk about the importance of life insurance
Chances are good your young adult already knows about car insurance and health insurance. However, he or she might not have heard much about life insurance. Explain the role life insurance plays, and how it can be used to replace income when someone passes away. To help get a deeper understanding of this topic, USAA offers an in-depth explanation of life insurance and how it can provide security for your family’s financial future. If yours is a military family, point out how USAA offers a number of benefits for you and your children, and that it is never too early to look into this type of policy.
Assure them that it’s okay to fail
Young adults may worry that they don’t measure up to the expectations of others. This can prevent them from trying new things that are out of their comfort zone. To help encourage your children to “go for it” in life and set whatever goals they wish, Very Well Family suggests redefining what it means to fail. Instead of thinking about “failure” as a negative, talk about how it can be a positive thing and an opportunity of sorts. By trying things and possibly failing at them, young adults will learn valuable life skills including the importance of sticking with something they want to do.
Remind them that just because something does not go easily or well the first time, does not mean they will never succeed. Use a role model from their own lives as an example; for instance, basketball star LeBron James has missed plenty of shots in his lifetime, but he never lets it stop him from going back out on the floor and doing better the next time.
Guiding Your Young Adult to Success
These three lessons are not “one and done” types of discussions. To really bring these topics home for your young adults, they will need to be talked about on a number of occasions. But by speaking with them as much as you can about money, life insurance and not being afraid to try new things, you will be well on your way to helping your older children prepare for and enjoy a successful future.