Cora and I invited you to involve your children in a myriad of projects this summer. The latest project included short- and long-term goal setting (see last week's article). While this project is fun, the development of goal-setting attitudes is serious business. We'll explore that serious side today as we look at a few problems that might develop between your children and these lists (or between you and your children). Then, we'll move forward to help transform goals into realities with investment possibilities.

1. Younger children can't imagine one-hundred things they'd like to do in the future. These children (under age 8) often can't fathom the numbers of "things" involved in the term, "one-hundred," let alone maintain a serious aspect to these lists. In this case, this project is fun practice for future goal-setting.

2. This list of goals is - initially - unencumbered by financial need. If you're on a strict budget, your children sense this confinement. Accordingly, they will often comply with a parent's needs by restricting their own desires. In this case, assure your children that this list is a game unencumbered by finances. The financial realities arrive soon enough.

3. Children feel less restricted with their lists if parents approve of their choices. "Ride an elephant" doesn't necessarily mean the child wants to join the circus. They may want to become a veterinarian or simply fulfill a fantasy grounded in a cartoon movie. This goal-setting list isn't a parental approval test, so encourage your child to "dream wild."

4. This list is not meant to become a barrier between family members. If your child blows this project off altogether, don't worry. If you only have one child, sit near them and begin your own list. Have fun with it! You might list five to twenty items and leave it in a conspicuous place where your child's curiosity will get the better of them. Continue this practice until you have 100 goals, and then praise yourself highly for this accomplishment. If you have several children and just one with attitude, join the cooperative children as you make your own list. You can avoid the heavy-handed praise, because your attitude-challenged child will 1) become angry and leave the room only to return later (sometimes much later, but they will uncover what happened), and 2) eventually hang out to watch the proceedings. Praise for work on this project is meant for the group, including the challenged child. Let this child know it's never too late to start his or her own list.

5. Alternately, if your child is serious about this project and can't imagine any goals, ask them if he or she wants your help. You might expand their horizons with new categories, because goals aren't always concerned with material acquisitions. They could include actions, like helping others; they could include improvements, like learning a new language. If they seem intimidated by these new categories, offer to join them in their efforts until they feel comfortable. Hopefully, once they understand there's no harm in imagining, they'll loosen that bone-crushing grip on your hand.

While this list cannot contain all the problems you might encounter with your children and their efforts with goal-setting, I hope it helps you create solutions for your particular situation. On the other hand, if you didn't encounter problems, you're ready to move your children and their goals to the next level. These next steps include all the work you've done with your children this summer to date, and next week we'll expand on how to incorporate these tools:

1. If your children accomplished last week's project, they've culled out the short-term goals. If not, help them separate the list into short- and long-term goals. Short-term goals are goals that they can financially and physically accomplish within the next year. "Financially accomplish" means those goals they can accomplish with outside jobs or jobs around the house. You supply guidelines for the latter employment opportunities. Long-term goals can begin today, but they take longer to finish (like learning a new language). Other long-term goals (a nine-year-old who wants to drive) might not begin for several years.

2. After separating the lists, count how many items are in the short- and long-term goals. It's good to have about twelve items in the short-term goal list, or one per month. If that list is short, now's the time to beef it up with more goals to meet this quota.

3. Now it's time to pull out the company lists from the project we began with Investment Scavenger Hunt and Commercial Investments. At this point, we begin to break the company lists down into sectors. A great tool to learn sectors is provided by the list on the Research page at BUYandHOLD, under the "Search by Category" menu. This part of the project may take several days, so don't be discouraged if the lists aren't broken down by next week. If your child(ren) manage to list companies (even one) under three different categories, they'll do fine! Also, a warning - many of your company listings might not be included in the "top ten" listings at BUYandHOLD. Don't worry - this omission doesn't mean your company is the pits or that it won't make a profit. It just means that your fellow BuyandHolders are not purchasing their stock.

4. Parents - this week take a look at "What Kind of BUYandHOLD Investor Are You?" Ponder your position within these categories, and determine how your children fit into the scheme of things as investors. We'll approach these categories next week when we begin to combine goals and finances.

Until Then,
Linda Goin