Like any parent, the last thing you want is to see your child suffer from bad money decisions when he or she becomes a young adult.

As the primary caregiver, it is your duty to make sure that your child acquires the right habits in money matters before he or she is influenced otherwise by today’s consumerism culture.

Here are five steps to creating a financial literacy parenting style:

1. Make up your mind

If you do not have the mind-set to start a saving habit in the family, it will drastically reduce the effect of the financial literacy parenting method.

A child picks up habits and imitates. Hence, things will not go well if you are practising the opposite of what you are trying to cultivate in your child.

In addition, you will have to be mentally prepared for questions about your old habits and the sudden change.

Be ready and open about your old and possibly bad habits and make it a learning journey with your child.

2. Find teachable moments

There will always be opportunities for teaching moments especially when you live in a city. Any transaction made before your child can be a lesson.

This includes calculation of money as well as planning how to spend and save. Moreover, you can also guide your child to analyse different brands and compare prices.

This can range from simple aspects such as the flavour of a carton of milk to more complex aspects such as the durability of a product based on the materials used.

You can also guide your child to think about money at home. Examples include looking through the household bills together and planning a goal for the family budget.

You can also incorporate simple conservation lessons into your teaching moments by encouraging your child to observe the impact of saving water and electricity over a few months resulting in a reduction in household bills.

3. What not to say in front of your child

Approach this with extreme caution! As mentioned, your child naturally imitates your every move and speech.

Therefore, it may be wise to discuss this with your partner and make sure that both of you are on the same page.

A simple start would be to avoid the concept of spending all your money. Saving is one of the easiest habits to cultivate in your child.

If your partner and you can hold your thoughts on “cheat days” where you spend on luxuries, it will be possible to leave a good saving impression on your child.

4. Keep talking

You may have made a few mistakes at the start. Do not give up! It is essential to continue building the right financial habits and you can do this by including financial literacy in the family’s normal conversations.

Discuss it over family dinner and in your family’s Whatsapp group. Ask each of your family members how they have carried out the good habits of financial literacy in their daily lives.

You can include current affairs and tie them in with sharing knowledge of currency value and investment too.

5. Build trust and patience

It is not an easy feat to start the financial literacy journey with your child, regardless of their age. Hence, you need to build trust and patience for the lessons to take effect.

Trust is important when you allow your child the freedom to spend. This includes giving him or her an allowance, asking your child to pay a bill or even to make a big purchase on your behalf.

If you trust your child to make the right decision, he or she will be able to learn independently based on the circumstances.

Besides trust, patience is required when your child is grasping the seemingly vague concepts of money such as long-term financial goals.

Depending on your child’s age, you may not be able to introduce complex concepts such as debt and investment into the picture immediately.

Therefore, it is better if you take it one step at a time with your child and make sure that he or she has a strong grasp of the basic concepts before you advance.

They say it takes a whole village to raise a child. Although this is no longer true, it is still vital to have teamwork within your household in this financial literacy journey.

If you have the support of your partner, parents, in-laws, domestic helper and even your older kids, it will be much easier to raise financially savvy children.

This article first appeared in The New Savvy.

The New Savvy is Asia’s leading financial, investment and career platform for women. Their bold vision is to empower 100 million women to achieve financial happiness. They deliver high-quality content through conferences, e-learning platforms, personal finance apps and e-commerce stores.