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Would support them fully, and with money. Trading is magnificent journey of self discovery, of humility, of open minded-ness and of the fallibility of one's own beliefs.
Those alone make me a better person, a more responsible person, allow me to remain curious engaged and focused. The only drawbacks being pain and suffering. Which I argue are not drawbacks at all, but a core element of growth.
How can I not encourage them on a such a courageous journey?
If we fail, at least, we lived in pursuit of something better than the mundane.
I wanted to select the "support them even financially" option, but decided in the end to pick "encourage them but they have to get a job" option.
Why, and why was the choice hard?
I picked it because I know that I, at least, needed to get some real-world experience when I was that age, and it helped me enormously.
Hard, because I also wouldn't want him/her to be working for The Man when there might be a dream to be followed.
So I picked the path of being responsible, but would also want them to go out and do the wild-ass thing. Just with a little cushion, and not just what I provided, and a little maturity from being somewhat on their own first.
I actually did this...My son is in his late twenties now but when I got serious about trading he would hang around while I worked on my charts.
He is a pretty bright kid and now works in the USA as a geomatic engineer, married and I have a grandson I have seen only a few times...it is a 3 hour flight to go for a visit...definitely not in the plans I had for being a grandfather.
My son would never ask me for money...even as a teenager. I taught him how to save money when he was 6 years old. I only EVER gave him a $1/week allowance and stopped that at age 12. However, he always got money from grandparents, his mother, odd jobs and we opened up a "kiddy" bank account at 5 years old. He would come to the bank every Saturday (I was a traveling salesman and on weekends I looked after him...no not divorced at that time...that came 15 years later ). It was the only day I could do my banking.
The deal was...ANY MONEY HE PUT INTO the bank I would match. Put in $2, I added $2 more...one time he tried $40 (Christmas money) but I said that was too much...so he negotiated $10 which I added $10 and we did that for 4 weeks...he laughs about that but hey! He was learning to negotiate. Every month we would get out the penny jar and see how many pennies of interest he earned....visual reinforcement.
I would only pay 1/2 of any major purchase...the bike costs $150...he paid $75....He always had to have a buy-in. That included his education...I gave him a small clothing allowance 2x per year but he paid for 1/2 his tuition and all his books...graduated with no debt. (he worked as a concierge at a hotel, did an internship with an engineering firm after his 3rd year and the firm paid for his final year tuition on the condition he worked for them after the degree)...
I stopped the matching bit when he stopped coming to the bank with me (about 12 years old...not cool anymore).
When he was 7 he had $500 in the account....told him we should put it into a GIC...took him into the bank to see my personal banker...had her explain in simple terms what the interest rates were...he chose the highest. At 10 he had another $500 .... time to go again to the bank...I had the same personal banker..."I want to do this myself, Dad"...O....kay. He came out with a big smile....at 12 years old I was in the bank and the teller (they all knew him) said my son was in the other day.... "you know we don't see kids his age making investment decisions"
SO...he had a respect for money.
So when he was interested in what I did as a trader, I showed him and did not discourage him from entering the stock market.
That was 10 years ago, He still dabbles long term trading in stocks...it is a hobby for him, nothing more. He turns good coin as a geomatic engineer and is dedicated to his work. I can see him eventually getting more involved as he is older...he watches the way I have been able to retire early and use the market for my income but is in no hurry to "get rich fast"
As you can see, my son had a respect for money and a simple investment plan growing up (he had to pretend to be skint with his friends but at age 15 he had a $7000 bank account).
If I had a son who did not respect money, did not have a head for finance, did not like to move ahead on a life plan...did not have a plan of his own......I WOULD NOT encourage him to try the market...in any case he would be using his own money if he went ahead anyway...not mine.
Get a job first??? Than why trade ????
By the time they got 18 I would give them enough insigt to let them choose if they are interested in trading or not.
If yes, obviously I would support them.
Knowing how hard trading is, it is imperative that there is a normal job first.
My son is not very proactive (as yet I hope!) nor he has a real sense of investing but if he is interested, I would not mind showing him the ropes and discuss the idea as a fall back should his career / job ends up in the tank in a worst case scenario.
If he has the same great sense with numbers, sentiments, and charts interpretation as I do - or better - may be I would consider it without a normal job first.
Alright, my 2 cents: I'm currently 24 years old a full time university student and a full time trader. Since I'm living in Europe most of the days I'm able to trade the US session.
A few years ago I ended up on a trading seminar by coincidence. The gentleman who held it was not a salesman, he wasn't promising triple digit gains on your 500usd margin account neither. He was talking about a never ending puzzle, a game that only a few can truly master. Would you not want to try?
A while later I filled my head with the idea that anybody can make an easy living trading, if only he pays a little amount of financial energy to certain individuals or gurus. So I began trading.. Basically I sat down with my parents and told them this glorious idea that I will be trading for a living! Looking back none of us really had any idea what trading really meant. So I began losing.. and began losing sleep over leaving too big positions open and losses.. It was really painful. I didn't understand it.. and then I realized that there aren't any shortcuts in this business and I'm not the special person that I thought I was. So I had to reassess.
To my biggest surprise my parents weren't upset when I came clean with my pnl. They were fully suportive eventhough i was pretty much floored emotinally because I worked so hard at it. I will always remember this! With full support I was able to learn about the real hurdles that traders (or entrepreneurs) have to face. Like risk control and self-awareness. Failure and overcoming failure. There are so many values that you can earn from this if you are looking at it from the right angle. A privilige really!
So If your child is interested let him trade. Give him or her a SIM account and tell them they are free to experience and they are really lucky because if they are able to show you dedication and self-control they can earn a small live account and so on and do not ever forget to tell them that it is alright to lose small in this game and it is alright to win as well!
“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” Δ
“There is no path, but only a fool wouldn’t follow it.”
I pretty much agree with this, with the addition that they are pretty good decision-makers where it comes to knowing where they want to go (right now), but terrible where it comes to knowing anything about the adult world where they are going to have to pursue their dreams. (And their dreams change all the time, too.)
Adults are sort of the opposite -- we know (all too well) about the factors in the "real world" that make us want to be realistic, as we see it, about what is possible, but that may mean that we temper our expectations about what we can accomplish... often too much.
So on balance, I made the same choice in the poll that it seems you did. The kids do need a better grounding. At that age, I needed it, and got it from my parents, but I also needed to strike out on my own and do some wild-eyed stuff, which I also did, within some parental restraint.
Since I don't have kids of my very own but have raised three and a half young ladies [nieces] into women and one teenager [great niece] I would utilize the same approach as I did while raising them. I would first train them to see if they have the wear with all to take on this vocation and if they did I would create a contract with them, subsidize them and ensure that they repay me as they accrue profit. Then during dinner we could discuss lessons learned, eat dinner and start the next day fresh. :-)
However, if they are just "playing" at trading and lose their initial investment ... too bad so sad. I move on and they get a job and repay me that way. LMAO
But, so far none of them have shown an interest and are all working and living life ... :-)
As the old adage goes: Cash, grass or ass ... no one rides for free.
Trading is a "loser's game". Even though as average retailers we are trading against and mostly skimming off of possibly 200 major institutions and a bunch of new HFT firms, and the myriad funds, it's still extremely difficult and success may not come easy even after years. It's already "professionally" saturated. So yes I would recommended an 18 yr old to do a regular career; and maybe take business and other personal investment classes/self-training before trying trading, at least waiting until after 25 ; always having an alternate career where retail trading is always recognized as some subset of gambling. Like older smokers had always kept smokes away from me in my younger days, I would do the same for too young traders re: starting trading as a first career. Trading is just too double-edged. And they are making it even harder to retailers, what, with the $15/month fee tacked on for no real good reason except some token public media gesture to bring justice against the "corrupt" 'speculators' when they really just shafted us retail aspirants. Who knows what's next.