Money fix: Start kids' financial education early

Your kids may not know (or care) that April is National Financial Literacy Month, but Janet Bodnar, editor of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, does, and she has written a Web exclusive on ways parents can help their offspring develop good money skills.

The best way, she writes, is by giving them an allowance -- they'll run through your money in a flash, but "it's a whole new ballgame" when it's theirs. She also raises the question: Should a child's allowance be tied to doing chores?

No to that.  Her view is that "kids should do chores because you ask them to; if they made the mess, they should clean it up without expecting to be paid." Amy Platt agrees, adding that you want to avoid having to dock a child's allowance for not doing a chore. Don't give them the choice of, "Oh, I don't feel like doing my chores this week, so I choose not to get my allowance," says Platt, founder and president of Hicksville-based

liparentsource.com, an online magazine with local resources for families.

Still. Platt does suggest discussing with kids what they're expected to do around the house. Aaron, her 8-year-old son, gets a $4 weekly allowance. He is also asked to feed the dog, put his laundry away and make his bed anyway. And, yes, he does push back sometimes, but Platt does remind him, with a wink, that, "I don't wear his clothes, but wash and fold them anyway." Part of the deal, she says, is that $2 a week goes into savings, usually for something in the $20 range, as "saving for college is too far away."

Resources. Kiplinger.com, see Money Smart Kids; financial-education-icfe.org, see Children and Money.