A survey of young teenagers found that 56% of them believed that they would become rich during their lifetimes. That’s not too surprising, but this is: The top three ways teens thought they’d get rich were by becoming a professional athlete, winning the lottery, or cashing in on a large lawsuit!

Can you believe it? They didn’t even consider the possibility of becoming financially well off through hard work and wise spending. This demonstrates how important it is for us to train children how to handle money God’s way. Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Well, how do we train children to wisely handle money? We need to become MVP parents. That’s an acronym. The M stands for Model. The V for Verbal communication and the P stands for Practical Opportunities.

We need to be models of how to handle money because children soak up parental attitudes toward money like a sponge soaks up water. Paul recognized the importance of modeling when he said, Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ”  (1 Corinthians 11:1).

Then we must, verbally tell our children why we handle money the way we do. For instance, share with them that you are getting out of debt because Proverbs 22:7 warns us, “The borrower is slave to the lender.” And finally, we should provide kids practical opportunities to apply what they are learning.

Well, if you have children, I pray that you’ll become a MVP parent. You can’t start too soon.