How to Stop Your Children Spending Money Online

Are your children spending too much money online? Have you ever thought about why your children end up spending money online? Most applications, games, and advertisements are designed to attract children’s minds in today’s digital era. All the animations, designs, and marketing strategies are supposed to appeal to children.

Innocent children are unaware of a specific technique, and they may click on the sites or advertisements that they may find attractive and unknowingly end up transferring money online. Getting attracted by such schemes, children tend to spend money unnecessarily.

As per the report of the SellCell survey conducted in 2020, an estimated 8.2% of parents stated that their children end up spending more than 100 U.S. dollars on in-app purchases in mobile games each month.

As a responsible parent, the primary goal is to teach your child to be responsible with money and control them from spending online. If your child learns and implements such skills practically, budgeting is much easier, and the risk that they’ll get into debt dramatically decreases in the future.

If you have no clue how to teach money management to your children and stop them from spending too much money online, here is the article that covers all the points to remove your curiosity and nine techniques that can lend a hand to your child to develop the skill.

Why teach money management to children?

One of the most valuable life skills parents can teach to their children is Money management. Children are good at observing what’s happening around them; thus, you need to set good money management practices. Saving money is such a habit that takes time to build and implement practically in our life.

Some of the advantages of money management in children are listed below:

• Children will understand the significance of budgeting and set their budgets, and think twice while spending in the future.
• Children will be capable of distinguishing between needs and wants and spend money more wisely.
• Realizing the importance of money by your children from an earlier age motivates them to work hard, whether for a scholar in childhood or for fulfilling their desired set of goals in the future.
• Money management will help your children create a good budgeting habit, which will help them manage their money and control the overspending of money.
• Money management teaches your children to make minor adjustments to save money and use it when required. 

Nine ways to stop your child from spending money online

1) Give them cash to use or set a card limit

Children often keep on swiping cards without checking account balances. Give your kids to spend only cash for a while to recognize their limits of spending money. As cash cannot be regained if lost or stolen, it is best to give your child only a small amount of money at a time.

Once your kids start showing good responsibility with cash, then go ahead and let them have their cards but set up a spending limit on the account. Or, you can have your child use their cards only for a specific type of purchase, such as academic supplies, food, or items they must buy online.

2) Conduct children’s weekly spending/budget review

Kids sometimes overspend just because they don’t have anyone holding them accountable. So, to save your children from spending more and make them realize the value of money, you need to establish a consistent routine to evaluate how your children are working financially.

Help your child set specific spending and saving goals and review the amount they spend and save by conducting a small weekly meeting. In such a meeting, you can teach them how to differentiate between functional and non-useful things and what they can spend on.

3) Use parental controls application on the technology

The most efficient way to stop your child from spending money online is by using a parental control application. Many parental control apps such as Fenced.ai, Net nanny, Bark.us are available in the market to limit your child’s online spending.

With the help of the parental control app, you can monitor your child’s smartphones to restrict or stop the transaction online and even monitor where your child spends money, whether it’s on specific applications, game subscriptions, or online shopping. Besides this, using parental control applications, you can also block monetary transactions in your devices for the child.

4) Explain the value of money

Another way to stop your child from spending money online is to explain the value of money to your child and the importance of knowing where to invest and where not to spend it. Make them realize the importance of money and alert them not to spend money unnecessarily.

Explain to your child how hard it is to make money and why you go to work. If possible, make a chart of monthly expenditure and savings by involving your child so that they can somewhat have a piece of knowledge about the expenses of household chores.

5) Start the schema of pocket money

Start the schema of the pocket money system rather than sharing your bank card PIN with your children. It helps your children to understand the importance of money. When a limited budget is provided, children become more alert while spending money unnecessarily.

It will assist children in spending money following their budget and needs, which ultimately lead to wise money management, savings, and acknowledging the importance of money in everyday life. They become more conscious about whether to spend or save it.

6) Teach your children how to be comfortable and satisfied

Children’s desires and demands have no end. Children start nagging and showing tantrums anywhere and at any time without knowing the situation. Sometimes there can be the case where your children spend money buying things online if they do not get them from you.

If you face a situation where a transaction has been conducted without your concern, then educate them and advise them about investing their money wisely. Do not lean on your children’s stubbornness; sometimes, strict guardianship is also required.

7) Teach your child about the financial consequences of spending too  much online

Children end up buying unnecessary things online without knowing what the consequences could be. Children unknowingly spend recklessly. It is the responsibility of every parent to teach their children how to value money and manage finance safely.

You can show some videos related to saving money and its consequences when spending more. Besides this, storytelling may also help, or you can show demos and acts regarding the subject. If you set a habit of spending wisely on children, it is beneficial for both the parents and children.

8) Do not let your children know your credit card details

Sharing your bank or credit card information with children is not a good idea as children do not know how to invest wisely. Try to keep your password, card information, PIN, and CVV number as private as possible.

Besides this, adding child lock settings or setting passwords, face recognition, or thumbprint might work to keep away your children from accessing it without your concern so that children could not misuse their credit card information and not spend money online unnecessarily.

9) Speak openly about the difference between wants and needs

When it comes to a child’s requests, most parents feel it difficult to say no but giving everything they ask for is also not good for both of you. Sometimes you need to be strict when they ask for something like asking you to buy a new toy or a dress which is sometimes not necessary at that particular moment.

In such a situation, you act calmly and make your children understand the difference between wants and needs. They may be frustrated at first, but they will later remember they never wanted the item and differentiate between wants and needs.

Final thoughts

Parents are responsible for handling their children and teaching them the importance of money to stop them from spending more online. The best point is to keep your credit card details out of your children’s reach.

As parents, you must ensure that your children understand the importance of money, which will teach them about long-term money management. You can use your blunders or mistakes as teaching tools for your children. Allow them to benefit from your errors toprevent your children from spending more money online.

As responsible parents, teach them the value of money. The most important thing children can learn from their parents is money management and always remember not to share your credit card details with your children or never keep your phone settings to auto-fill your bank details.