让孩子成为理财高手

Give them a few dollars -- and some financial common sense.

Want to make sure your children grow up to be money-smart adults? Check out the four experiments below.

My advice: Try these tricks on your kids, talk to them about the lessons to be learned -- and then quietly muse about whether you, too, fall prey to these financial traps.

-- Favoring today. If children are to save diligently once they're adults, they need to learn to delay gratification. Yet this skill doesn't come easily.

Want proof? Let's say you give your kids $5 a week in pocket money. When it's next time to fork over their allowance, offer them a choice: They can have the usual $5 right away -- or they can have $7, equal to a whopping 40% more, if they're willing to wait a week.

'It's about immediate gratification,' says Shlomo Benartzi, an economics professor at the University of California at Los Angeles. 'Getting nothing right now doesn't sound good, so they'd probably go for the $5.'

That doesn't necessarily mean your children want their pocket money all at once. Prof. Benartzi, cofounder of the Behavioral Finance Forum, also suggests offering a choice between, say, $7 right away and $1 every day. He suspects children might favor the daily $1 -- because, like adults, they prefer a series of small gains to a single big win.

-- Slowing spending. We think about money differently, depending on its form. For instance, we're usually more careful about our spending if we are paying with cold cash rather than a credit card.

To test this in your kids, try varying the form of their pocket money. One week, give them five singles. The next week, give them a $5 bill. You will likely find your children are slower to spend the $5 bill.

'It seems to be perceived as having more value,' says Dhananjay Nayakankuppam, a marketing professor at the University of Iowa. 'The subjective pain of parting with the $5 bill is greater than the subjective pain of parting with five $1 bills.'

Adults show the same tendency. In a study that appeared in the March 2006 Journal of Consumer Research, Prof. Nayakankuppam and his co-authors, Arul Mishra and Himanshu Mishra, found that people were less inclined to spend if they had, say, a $50 bill rather than 10 $5 bills.

-- Making a wish list. We have all hankered after items we've seen at the mall or in an advertisement. Sometimes, we buy and end up disappointed. Sometimes, we wait a few days and the urge passes.

Want to deter your children from impulse purchases? Consider the strategy used by reader Helane Becker, a financial analyst who lives in Millburn, N.J.

When her two kids mention things they want, Ms. Becker adds the items to each child's wish list. A few days or weeks later, she goes over the lists with her kids -- and sees which items they still want to buy with their own money or receive as birthday or holiday gifts.

'When they were little, it surprised me that, by Friday, they sometimes couldn't remember a specific toy they so desperately wanted on Tuesday,' Ms. Becker says.

-- Keeping the change. Children seem to have endless desires, which shouldn't be a huge shock. After all, their purchases usually aren't costing them anything, because they are spending their parents' money. The trick: Make your kids feel like they're spending their own money.

I learned this with my daughter. When Hannah went on her first school field trip, I gave her $5 and told her I wanted the change. She returned with a bag of trinkets and a few pennies.

On the next trip, I gave her $5 again. But this time, I told her she could keep any money that was left over. She came back with $5.

I later tried the same trick with Hannah's younger brother, Henry. It wasn't nearly so successful. Still, it provided another chance to talk about money -- which, as long as parents don't overdo it, is probably a good thing.

'You don't want to turn them into money-saving automatons,' warns Meir Statman, a finance professor at Santa Clara University in California. 'It's good to know when to put money into the piggy bank. But it's also good to know when to take it out.'

在给子女零花钱的同时，别忘了让他们懂得一些金融常识。

想让自己的孩子长大后成为一名理财高手？看看以下四个小试验。

我的建议是：在你自己的孩子身上做这些试验，然后向他们传授经验教训--再回过头来想想你自己在财务上是否也曾出过这些差错。

--先苦后甜。要想子女长大后能勤于储蓄，就要让他们学会先苦后甜，但这种习惯并不容易养成。

想证实一下？那可以在第一周给孩子5块钱的零花钱，然后第二周让他们选择是立即拿到5块钱，还是等到下一周可以拿7块钱。

加州大学洛杉矶分校(University of California at Los Angeles)的经济学教授什洛莫•贝纳茨(Shlomo Benartzi)表示，这涉及到是否立即得到满足的问题。眼前两手空空可不是件令人高兴的事情，因此孩子可能会选择立即拿到5块钱。

不过这并不意味着你的孩子一定要立即拿到所有的零花钱。身为行为金融学论坛(Behavioral Finance Forum)的联合创始人，贝纳茨建议给孩子另外两种选择，一种是立即拿到7块钱，另一种是每天拿1块钱。他估计孩子们可能会选择后者，因为与成年人一样，孩子子也喜欢积少成多。

--减缓支出。根据金钱存在形式的差异，我们对它的感觉是不同的。例如，如果我们用现金支付，一般会比刷卡消费更为克制。

若要在孩子身上证明这一点，可以试试以不同的方式给他们零花钱。比如在第一周给他们5个1块钱，然后在第二周给他们一张5块钱的整钞。这时你会发现，他们拿着5块钱的钞票时花钱会更加克制。

广告艾奥瓦大学(University of Iowa)营销学教授达南杰•纳亚坎库潘(Dhananjay Nayakankuppam)称，看上去5块钱钞票在心中的份量更重；一张5块钱钞票与5个1块钱相比更让人难以割舍。

成年人也有相同的倾向。《消费者研究》(Journal of Consumer Research)2006年3月刊上的一份研究报告发现，拿着一张50块钱钞票的人，其消费意愿要低于拿着5张10块钱钞票的人。这份报告是由纳亚坎库潘与阿鲁尔•米希拉(Arul Mishra)和希曼苏•米希拉(Himanshu Mishra)共同完成的。

--许愿清单。当看到商店中称列的和广告中展示的商品时，我们都会忍不住想买下来。不过有时候，我们却对买下的东西感到失望。还有的时候，我们忍上几天，这股冲动就一去不复返了。

你是否想抑制孩子的购物冲动？不妨试试新泽西州金融分析师海兰娜•贝克(Helane Becker)的办法。

每当贝克的两个孩子提出要买东西时，她便将这些东西写进他们的许愿清单。几天或几周过后，她再与孩子们一起复查一遍清单，看看哪些东西他们还念念不忘地想要动用自己的“小金库”购买，还是更愿意等到生日和圣诞节时作为礼物“笑纳”。

贝克说，让我吃惊的一点是，当他们还小时，有时候在周二还死活要买的某件玩具，到了周五便被忘得一干二净了。

--留下零钱。孩子子总是要这要那的，不必为此大惊小怪。毕竟，买东西的钱又不是他们自己出，用的是他们父母的钱。而这里要介绍的办法便是让孩子觉得用的是自己的钱。

我在自己的女儿身上便发现了这点。在汉娜第一次参加学校郊游时，我给了她5块钱，并要她把花剩下的零钱带回来。最后她带了一包小首饰回来，手中只剩下几分钱。

第二次郊游时，我又给了她5块钱。不过这一次我告诉她花剩下的钱可以自己留下来。最后她回家时这5块钱分文未动。

后来我又在汉娜的弟弟身上用了相同的办法。虽然并不是很成功，但为我与他讨论用钱方面的问题提供了又一次机会。在这个问题上，只要父母做得不是很过头，或许便会是一件好事。

圣塔克拉拉大学(Santa Clara University)金融学教授梅尔•斯特曼(Meir Statman)表示，你不会希望将孩子变成一部存钱机器。知道何时将钱放进存钱罐是件好事情，不过知道何时将钱取出来同样是件好事情。