How Parents Can Know if They’re Making a Good or Bad “Investment”
Parents spend thousands of dollars per year on private coaching, tutoring, camps, and numerous other things to invest in their child’s future. However, how do parents know if spending this type of money is a bad investment or a good investment?
There is no definitive answer to this question without hindsight. However, there is a way to increase the chance of being right. A good investment will result in three things:
- The development of a skill.
- Your child developing self-motivation to continue to invest in that skill without you pushing them.
- Your child learns how to convert that skill into something valuable long-term.
So, when parents invest in skills that children don’t have the self-motivation to develop, it’s likely a bad investment. This is because if a child doesn’t enjoy the process, they will resist hard work and drudgery in every moment. Moreover, there is no way to turn a skill into something valuable if you resist hard work and drudgery.
On the other hand, the hard work and drudgery is worth it to the child when they enjoy what they are doing. Correspondingly, the child develops self-motivation to push themselves to stick with the process long-term.
Therefore, there is only one way to be sure a parent is making a good investment. Only “invest” money in developing skills that are both innately interesting to their child and valuable long-term. That doesn’t mean parents shouldn’t spend money in areas that don’t meet this standard. However, it does mean that money spent in areas that don’t meet this standard are just expenses, not investments.