Helping Your Teen Choose a First Credit Card

One of the most important things that you can do as the parent of a teenager is to make a concentrated effort to assist your teen in establishing his independence in a safe and intelligent way. When it comes to finances, this means helping your teen to develop good habits with employment and money so that he can always have that strong foundation of financial stability. One of the key things that will come up as you help your teen with this part of life is the situation of getting that first credit card.

Credit cards are a very important part of life today even for youngsters. In order to be able to secure good loans in the future, the teen has to start establishing good credit from an early age. Unfortunately, getting a credit card as a teenager is also risky because it opens up the potential for making serious financial mistakes that can damage credit for years to come. As a parent, you need to be active in guiding your teen to make good credit card choices. The first of these choices will be which credit card to get.

The important thing to keep in mind here is that your role as the parent of an aging teenager is to offer suggestions, advice and insight without making decisions for your teen. If you were to select a credit card for your teen, he wouldn’t develop the skills necessary to choose good credit cards down the line. Instead, you want to assist your teen in determining what a good credit card is so that he is actively involved in the selection of the card and can learn the skills that will help him make those good choices later when he’s financially on his own.

Sit down with your teen and discuss the things that you personally would seek in a good credit card. Make sure to discuss the importance of factoring in personal spending styles when choosing a credit card. For example, you may consider a low interest rate to be important when choosing a credit card. However, you may know that your teen is likely to make late payments and therefore that a card which doesn’t penalize for this is a better choice even if it has a higher interest rates. In discussing these things, make sure that you offer plenty of opportunity for your teen to insert input into what makes a good credit card and what factors should be considered in choosing one.

Your teen may act as though he doesn’t want your advice about things in life but the truth of the matter is that he does seek some guidance from you. There are going to be many controversial issues that come up between you and your teen but choosing a good credit card together doesn’t have to be one of them. Use this opportunity to really assist your teen in establishing a good foundation of financial skills while also building your relationship together. This will prove useful immediately as well as in the long run.