How to raise children who will be wealthy, not broke

Whether or not a child will become rich or poor largely depends upon what their parents are able to teach them. Today, instead of building their knowledge on financial success, childrens’ schools, politicians and the media are teaching them that being rich is succumbing to corruption and greed, and that those that have too much wealth need to spread it around.

This is according to bestselling author, speaker and media contributor Tom Corley.

“What kind of a message do you think that sends to America’s future generation?” Corley writes. “It is teaching them that seeking financial success by pursuing the American Dreams is a bad thing. The Occupy Wall Street movement was a manifestation of this ‘wealth is bad and needs to be redistributed’ mindset.”

A sample from the long list of statistics Corley quotes on the daily habits that separate the wealthy from the poor include the following:

• 72 percent of the wealthy know their credit score, while just 5 percent of the poor do the same.
• 6 percent of the wealthy play the lottery, while a whopping 77 percent of the poor do the same.
• 21 percent of the wealthy are overweight by 30 pounds, as opposed to 66 percent of the poor.
• 83 percent of the wealthy attend or attended back-to-school night for their kids, in comparison to just 13 percent of the poor who do or did so.
• According to Corley, this shows that the reason for the wealth gap is that parents are failing their kids.

“The fact is the poor are poor because they have too many Poverty Habits and too few Rich Habits,” he writes. “Poor parents teach their children the Poverty Habits and wealthy parents teach their children the Rich Habits. We don’t have a wealth gap in this country we have a parent gap. We don’t have income inequality, we have parent inequality.”

To alleviate this problem, he recommends a few “success habits“:

1. Limit T.V., social media and cell phone use to no more than one hour a day.
2. Require that children read one to two educational books a month.
3. Require children to aerobically exercise 20–30 minutes per day.
4. Limit junk food to no more than 300 calories a day.
5. Require that children set monthly, annual and five-year goals.
6. Require working age children to work or volunteer at least 10 hours a week.
7. Require that children save at least 25 percent of their earnings or gifts they receive.
8. Teach children the importance of relationship building by requiring them to call friends, family, teachers, coaches etc. on their birthdays and to send thank you cards for gifts or help they received from anyone.
9. Reassure children that mistakes are good, not bad. Children need to understand that the very foundation of success in life is built on learning from our mistakes.
10. Punish children when they lose their tempers so they understand the importance of controlling this very costly emotion.
11. Teach children that seeking financial success in life is good and is a worthwhile goal. Children need to learn what the American Dream is and that it is something to be pursued in life.
12. Children need to learn how to manage money. Open up a checking account or savings account for children and force them to use their savings to buy the things they want. They need to learn that they are not entitled to things like cell phones, computers, fashionable clothes, flat screen T.V.s etc.
13. Require children to participate in at least two non-sports-related extracurricular activities at school or outside of school.
14. Parents and children need to set aside at least an hour a day to talk to one another. Not on Facebook, or on the cell phone, but face to face. The only quality time is quantity time.
15. Teach children how to manage their time. They should be required to create daily “to do” lists, and these lists need to be monitored by parents. The goal should be to accomplish at least 70 percent of their tasks on their daily “to do” list.

Source: Finacial Juneteenth