How Much Should You Do For Your Kids?

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, TX - Photo by Rick Gershon/Getty Images

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Since I don’t have any kids, I am the perfect objective person to tell you all the positives and negatives about how you should be raising yours.

I am more than happy to share my unbiased opinion on things you should and should not do for your kids.

Retirement vs. Education

There are many parents that are fixated on sending their kids to college. And not just any college — we’ve got to pull out all the stops and get them to the giants in the world of academia. Nothing less than Harvard, Yale or Stanford will do.

Obviously this takes money. More than the student has so parents start eyeing their lucrative retirement funds.

Trust me —You don’t want to do that.

Do not trade your retirement fund, comfortable living in your golden years to send you kid to some school where upon graduation he or she will be making less than you did with little or no education.

It’s your money. If they want to work toward a scholarship for college, more power to them. If they want to work and save and postpone college for a while, that’s fine too.

But don’t blow your life savings and your future on your kids. They have yet to demonstrate a positive return on that investment.

More than likely they will become world-class drinkers or wet T-shirt contest winners.

However, if they do turn out to be successful, they can make your retirement even better by giving you a big payday for all the gray hair they gave you.

Home Schooling

I attended public school until college. But my mother home schooled me during the summer months. She didn’t trust my education to strangers.

So each summer we worked on the multiplication tables that I learned to the 12^th level. Spelling, reading and history were also on the summer curriculum.

We are fortunate to have some pretty good schools and teachers in our area. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t test your kid’s level of learning from time to time.

Some Final Thoughts

Life is tough and the world is tough. In real life not everyone gets a participation trophy. In real life they use red pens and they don’t care if they hurt your feelings.

And the weaker kids are picked last for the playground games and work promotions.

The main obligation you have to your children is to do your best to make them honest, productive people with positive work and social ethics.

That will go a lot further than anything Yale, Harvard or Dartmouth is going to do for them.