All parents struggle to teach their children about money. So how do you teach your children the value of a dollar without effectively teaching them to love money? Financial training begins with the law of tithing. Here are some ideas to help you incorporate financial preparation into the lessons you teach your children:

Tithing. Make sure that your children begin paying tithing well before they are baptized members of the church, before they are accountable so that when they are baptized and become accountable, the payment of tithes has long been a habit.
Allowance. Having young children pay tithing, requires that they have a source of income. It is wise for parents to give even young children (who are old enough to count and do simple math) a small allowance so that they begin to appreciate the value of a dollar-and the value of the dime they give back to the Lord.
Fast Offerings. As children get older, it is important to encourage them to make other contributions, appropriate for their income, to fast offerings, the ward mission fund, the perpetual education fund, the humanitarian service fund, etc. Be sure to teach your children to fast as well as pay fast offerings. By helping them to make the choice to contribute to fast offerings and one or more of the other donation accounts, you prepare them to be independent adult members of the Church. Make it easy for their first single’s ward Bishop to invite them to participate financially beyond tithing.
Savings Account. At some point between age eight and age 12, most kids are intellectually ready for the rigors of a savings account at the local bank or credit union. Of course, you can and should be saving money for your children’s education long before this point, but I’m talking here about helping your child take $5 or $25 of her own money down to the bank to open an account herself. In this way she can see how it works, can begin to appreciate what it’s like to earn interest and how the banking system operates.
On Their Own. It is a good idea to allow children to want something that they can reasonably be expected to buy on their own from money they save from their allowance. It is good and proper that kids should save for months to buy an Xbox or iPod. These items are not essential to healthy childhood development but learning to save for something she wants rather than simply asking and receiving is an important life lesson-better learned at age 12 than age 24.
Work. Part of the process of learning to appreciate the value of a dollar is learning to work. Some of those lessons can be learned at home doing chores in exchange for allowance, but even that valuable experience pales in comparison to working for someone other than one’s own parents. If you give your children a modest allowance that leaves them wanting for more money to buy their own stuff, they’ll naturally gain a desire for a little part time job that can be an invaluable training ground for learning what it’s like just to show up for work, take instruction from a supervisor and be accountable for completing work assignments on time.
School. Encourage and reward your children for doing well in school. Help them to balance work, play and study so that they are well-rounded and well-prepared for adult independence when neither you nor anyone else will be there to help your kids choose among another shift, an evening out with friends or a night of study. Just as sure as that your students can’t get into college without good grades, your students won’t be ready for a real job after college if they’ve never had one before.
Mission Savings. Helping your children to organize their own mission savings can be a powerful way not only to help them prepare financially, but also spiritually. If they are contributing to their own mission fund each month, it is likely that each contribution to the fund will also serve to steel their desire to serve a mission. You may wish to offer a 401k-style match, contributing one dollar to the mission fund for each dollar contributed by your child. In that way, the fund grows more quickly, but your child maintains a sense of independence and commitment, feeling that he’s done it himself.
College Savings. It is best for you to keep the college fund for your children out of their grasp before they start college. You’d hate for the college fund to become a junior year Ford Mustang or a beautiful collection of shoes. That said, you may want to involve your children in the college fund process, updating them on the available balance and what that implies for college. You may wish to encourage your children to contribute to their college financing as they earn money.
Cars. There is nothing wrong with encouraging your kids to get by using public transportation while they are students-even in college. Most who read this will agree (if only because there is no practical alternative). For those for whom buying a car for a teenager is a practical solution for busy schedules, don’t miss the opportunity to teach your student some responsibility. Make sure your student takes and understands the responsibility to maintain the car, fuel and insure it.

As a practical matter, it may be tempting to avoid the hassle involved with teaching the lessons described above and simply give your kids another $20 here or $50 there every time they need money. If you do, you’ll deprive them of the opportunity to learn the value of money. If they can’t understand its value, they will have a harder time understanding important principles like tithing and fast offerings. Hand in hand with learning the value of money is the ethic of hard work. School simply isn’t an adequate teacher for these life principles; parents need to be proactively involved in helping to prepare their children to be productive citizens.

My book, Building Wealth for Building the Kingdom addresses these and other financial topics; you can connect with me on my blog at BuildingWealthForBuildingTheKingdom.com. Be sure to share your experiences in the comments below.